THE Vietnam Era Project of the Center for Policy Research has for the last several years been studying the male Vietnam veteran and his nonveteran peers. We collected comprehensive life history data for the purpose of assessing current functioning and the impact of the Vietnam War upon occupational and educational careers, upon interpersonal relations, and upon psychological mood and symptomatology. The veterans in this group constitute a rare and relatively difficult to access population when contrasted with a typical survey population. To draw a representative sample of sufficient size and Abstract A multiplicity sample of a relatively rare population-Vietnam era veterans-provides insight into the following field issues: yield, location problems, coverage bias, and the effect of inclusion rule, i.e., eligible kin nominators. Here, the latter included parents, siblings, aunts and uncles. The resultant yield was double that of a conventional sample but was much higher for black and Mexican-American veterans than for whites. Location problems (on which there was little prior knowledge) were less serious than anticipated, requiring persistence but not extravagant expenditures to solve. Undercoverage bias was reduced by "nonselective" screening; this raised location cost, however. Relative yield, an indicator of selection bias, varied by kin category. Parents showed a higher relative yield than did siblings, while aunts and uncles were strikingly low in nominations relative to their numbers.

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