Bayesian Inference of Finite Population Quantiles for Skewed Survey Data Using Skew-Normal Penalized Spline Regression.

Skewed data are common in sample surveys. In probability proportional to size sampling, we propose two Bayesian model-based predictive methods for estimating finite population quantiles with skewed sample survey data. We assume the survey outcome to follow a skew-normal distribution given the probability of selection and model the location and scale parameters of the skew-normal distribution as functions of the probability of selection. To allow a flexible association between the survey outcome and the probability of selection, the first method models the location parameter with a penalized spline and the scale parameter with a polynomial function, while the second method models both the location and scale parameters with penalized splines. Using a fully Bayesian approach, we obtain the posterior predictive distributions of the nonsampled units in the population and thus the posterior distributions of the finite population quantiles. We show through simulations that our proposed methods are more efficient and yield shorter credible intervals with better coverage rates than the conventional weighted method in estimating finite population quantiles. We demonstrate the application of our proposed methods using data from the 2013 National Drug Abuse Treatment System Survey.