Toward a New Approach to Creating Population-Representative Data for Demographic Research.

The evaluation of innovative web-based data collection methods that are convenient for the general public and that yield high-quality scientific information for demographic researchers has become critical. Web-based methods are crucial for researchers with nationally representative research objectives but without the resources of larger organizations. The web mode is appealing because it is inexpensive relative to in-person and telephone modes, and it affords a high level of privacy.

Improving follow-up survey completion rates through pilot interventions in the All of Us Research Program: Results from a non-randomized intervention study.

Objective: Retention to complete follow-up surveys in extensive longitudinal epidemiological cohort studies is vital yet challenging. All of Us developed pilot interventions to improve response rates for follow-up surveys.

Study Design And Setting: The pilot interventions occurred from April 27, 2020, to August 3, 2020.

What predicts willingness to participate in a follow-up panel study among respondents to a national web/mail survey?

The American Family Health Study (AFHS) collected family health and fertility data from a national probability sample of persons aged 18-49 between September 2021 and May 2022, using web and mail exclusively. In July 2022, we surveyed AFHS respondents and gauged their willingness to become part of a national web panel that would create novel longitudinal data on these topics. We focus on predictors of willingness to participate, identifying the potential selection bias that this type of approach may introduce.

Applying Responsive Survey Design to Small-Scale Surveys: Campus Surveys of Sexual Misconduct.

Responsive survey design is a technique aimed at improving the efficiency or quality of surveys by using incoming data from the field to make design changes. The technique was pioneered on large national surveys, but the tools can also be applied on the smaller-scale surveys most commonly used by sociologists. We demonstrate responsive survey design in a small-scale, list-based sample survey of students on the topic of sexual misconduct.

Visible Cash, a Second Incentive, and Priority Mail? An Experimental Evaluation of Mailing Strategies for a Screening Questionnaire in a National Push-to-Web/Mail Survey.

In push-to-web surveys that use postal mail to contact sampled cases, participation is contingent on the mail being opened and the survey invitations being delivered. The design of the mailings is crucial to the success of the survey. We address the question of how to design invitation mailings that can grab potential respondents' attention and sway them to be interested in the survey in a short window of time.

Importance of missingness in baseline variables: A case study of the All of Us Research Program.

Objective: The All of Us Research Program collects data from multiple information sources, including health surveys, to build a national longitudinal research repository that researchers can use to advance precision medicine. Missing survey responses pose challenges to study conclusions. We describe missingness in All of Us baseline surveys.

Shedding light on participant selection bias in Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) studies: Findings from an internet panel study.

Although the potential for participant selection bias is readily acknowledged in the momentary data collection literature, very little is known about uptake rates in these studies or about differences in the people that participate versus those who do not. This study analyzed data from an existing Internet panel of older people (age 50 and greater) who were offered participation into a momentary study (n = 3,169), which made it possible to compute uptake and to compare many characteristics of participation status. Momentary studies present participants with brief surveys multiple times a day over several days; these surveys ask about immediate or recent experiences.

An Experimental Evaluation of Two Approaches for Improving Response to Household Screening Efforts in National Mail/Web Surveys.

Survey researchers have carefully modified their data collection operations for various reasons, including the rising costs of data collection and the ongoing Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, both of which have made in-person interviewing difficult. For large national surveys that require household (HH) screening to determine survey eligibility, cost-efficient screening methods that do not include in-person visits need additional evaluation and testing. A new study, known as the American Family Health Study (AFHS), recently initiated data collection with a national probability sample, using a sequential mixed-mode mail/web protocol for push-to-web US HH screening (targeting persons aged 18-49 years).

A Simple Question Goes a Long Way: A Wording Experiment on Bank Account Ownership.

Ownership of a bank account is an objective measure and should be relatively easy to elicit via survey questions. Yet, depending on the interview mode, the wording of the question and its placement within the survey may influence respondents' answers. The Health and Retirement Study (HRS) asset module, as administered online to members of the Understanding America Study (UAS), yielded substantially lower rates of reported bank account ownership than either a single question on ownership in the Current Population Survey (CPS) or the full asset module administered to HRS panelists (both interviewer-administered surveys).

Comparison of a web-push vs. mailed survey protocol in the Monitoring the Future panel study among adults ages 35 to 60.

Introduction: Updating the mode of data collection may affect response rates or survey results. The ongoing, national Monitoring the Future (MTF) panel study has traditionally used mailed paper surveys. In 2018, MTF experimented with a web-push data collection design for young adults ages 19-30, concluding that the web-push design improved response rates and did not change substance use estimates after controlling for sociodemographic characteristics (Patrick et al.

Data quality and response distributions in a mixed-mode survey.

Longitudinal surveys traditionally conducted by interviewers are facing increasing pressures to explore alternatives such as sequential mixed-mode designs, which start with a cheaper self-administered mode (online) then follow up using more expensive methods such as telephone or face-to-face interviewing. Using a designed experiment conducted as part of the 2018 wave of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) in the US, we compare a sequential mixed-mode design (web then telephone) with the standard telephone-only protocol. Using an intent-to-treat analysis, we focus on response quality and response distributions for several domains key to HRS: physical and psychological health, financial status, expectations and family composition.

A Web-Based Event History Calendar Approach for Measuring Contraceptive Use Behavior.

Event history calendars (EHCs) are frequently used in social measurement to capture important information about the time ordering of events in people's lives, and enable inference about the relationships of the events with other outcomes of interest. To date, EHCs have primarily been designed for face-to-face or telephone survey interviewing, and few calendar tools have been developed for more private, self-administered modes of data collection. Web surveys offer benefits in terms of both self-administration, which can reduce social desirability bias, and timeliness.

Recall of clinical trial participation and attrition rates in survivors of acute respiratory distress syndrome.

Purpose: To measure the rate of recall of study participation and study attrition in survivors of acute respiratory distress syndrome(ARDS).

Materials/methods: In this ancillary study of the Re-evaluation of Systemic Early neuromuscular blockade(ROSE) trial, we measured the rate of study participation recall 3 months following discharge and subsequent study attrition at 6 months. We compared patient and hospital characteristics, and long-term outcomes by recall.

Building on a Sequential Mixed-Mode Research Design in the Monitoring the Future Study.

Given the promise of the web push plus e-mail survey design for providing cost-effective and high-quality data (Patrick et al. 2018, 2019) as an alternative to a paper-and-pencil mailed survey design for the longitudinal Monitoring the Future (MTF) study, the current study sought to further enhance the web push condition. The MTF sample is based on US nationally representative samples of 12th grade students surveyed annually.

An evaluation of whether propensity score adjustment can remove the self-selection bias inherent to web panel surveys addressing sensitive health behaviours.

Background: In health research, population estimates are generally obtained from probability-based surveys. In market research surveys are frequently conducted from volunteer web panels. Propensity score adjustment (PSA) is often used at analysis to try to remove bias in the web survey, but empirical evidence of its effectiveness is mixed.

Dermatologist demographics and patient satisfaction: A single-center survey study.

Background: Patient satisfaction is a proxy for quality clinical care. Understanding the factors that drive patient satisfaction scores is important because they are publicly reported, may be used in determining hospital and physician compensation, and may allow patients to preselect physicians.

Objective: This single-center survey study of adult patients at the Michigan Medicine outpatient dermatology clinics aimed to investigate how patients respond differently to theoretical dermatologic scenarios with varying dermatologist gender.

The impact of survey mode on US national estimates of adolescent drug prevalence: results from a randomized controlled study.

Background And Aims: Increasing numbers of school-based drug surveys are transitioning data collection to electronic tablets from paper-and-pencil, which may produce a survey mode effect and consequent discontinuity in time trends for population estimates of drug prevalence. This study tested whether (a) overall, self-reported drug use prevalence is higher on electronic tablets versus paper-and-pencil surveys, (b) socio-demographics moderate survey mode effects and (c) levels of missing data are lower for electronic tablet versus paper-and-pencil modes.

Design: A randomized controlled experiment.

Comparison of a web-push survey research protocol with a mailed paper and pencil protocol in the Monitoring the Future panel survey.

Aims: The experiment tested the effects of a web-push survey research protocol, compared with the standard mailed paper-and-pencil protocol, among young adults aged 19-30 years in the 'Monitoring the Future' (MTF) longitudinal study.

Design, Setting And Participants: The US-based MTF study has measured substance use trends among young adults in panel samples followed biennially, using consistent mailed survey procedures from 1977 to 2017. In 2018, young adult participants in the MTF longitudinal component scheduled to be surveyed at ages 19-30 in 2018 (from high school senior cohorts of 2006-17, n = 14 709) were randomly assigned to receive the standard mail/paper survey procedures or new web-push procedures.

Two-Year Follow-up of a Sequential Mixed-Mode Experiment in the U.S. National Monitoring the Future Study.

This study examines the two-year follow up (data collected in 2016 at modal age 21/22) of an original mixed-mode longitudinal survey experiment (data collected at modal age 19/20 in 2014). The study compares participant retention in the experimental conditions to retention in the standard Monitoring the Future (MTF) control condition (participants who completed an in-school baseline survey in 12 grade in 2012 or 2013 and were selected to participate in the first follow-up survey by mail in 2014, =2,451). A supplementary sample who completed the 12 grade baseline survey in 2012 or 2013 but were selected to participate in the main MTF follow-up (=4,950) were recruited and randomly assigned to one of three experimental conditions: 1: Mail Push, 2: Web Push, 3: Web Push + Email in 2014 and again in 2016.

The Effect of Framing and Placement on Linkage Consent.

Numerous surveys link interview data to administrative records, conditional on respondent consent, in order to explore new and innovative research questions. Optimizing the linkage consent rate is a critical step toward realizing the scientific advantages of record linkage and minimizing the risk of linkage consent bias. Linkage consent rates have been shown to be particularly sensitive to certain design features, such as where the consent question is placed in the questionnaire and how the question is framed.

Willingness to Participate in Passive Mobile Data Collection.

The rising penetration of smartphones now gives researchers the chance to collect data from smartphone users through passive mobile data collection via apps. Examples of passively collected data include geolocation, physical movements, online behavior and browser history, and app usage. However, to passively collect data from smartphones, participants need to agree to download a research app to their smartphone.

The utility of a follow-up interview for respondents to a longitudinal survey with frequent measurement.

Social processes that change quickly are difficult to study, because they require frequent survey measurement. Weekly, daily, or even hourly measurement may be needed depending on the topic. With more frequent measurement comes the prospect of more complex patterns of missing data.

Development of the Initial Surveys for the All of Us Research Program.

Background: The All of Us Research Program is building a national longitudinal cohort and collecting data from multiple information sources (e.g., biospecimens, electronic health records, and mobile/wearable technologies) to advance precision medicine.

A Sequential Mixed-Mode Experiment in the U.S. National Monitoring the Future Study.

The national Monitoring the Future (MTF) study examines substance use among adolescents and adults in the United States and has used paper questionnaires since it began in 1975. The current experiment tested three conditions as compared to the standard MTF follow-up protocol (i.e.