Increasing Response Rates to a Smoking Survey for U.S. Navy Enlisted Women

This study examined the effectiveness of several persistent strategies to increase the response to a smoking survey among newly enlisted U.S. Navy women. The stepped approach, which included the use of incentives, repeated mailings, alternative survey administration modes, and reminders, was evaluat...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Evaluation & the health professions 2000-06, Vol.23 (2), p.172-181
Main Authors: Woodruff, Susan I., Conway, Terry L., Edwards, Christine C.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
American
Analysis of Variance
Cohort Studies
Ethnicity
Female
Females
Follow-Up Studies
Health Behavior
Health Surveys
Health technology assessment
Humans
Military personnel
Military Personnel - statistics & numerical data
Navies
Patient Participation - statistics & numerical data
Personnel
Polls & surveys
Prompting
Research Design
Response rate
Response rates
Response Rates (Questionnaires)
Smoking
Smoking - epidemiology
Smoking Cessation
Socioeconomic Status
Surveys
Surveys and Questionnaires
Telephone Surveys
United States - epidemiology
Women
Women's Health
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Summary:This study examined the effectiveness of several persistent strategies to increase the response to a smoking survey among newly enlisted U.S. Navy women. The stepped approach, which included the use of incentives, repeated mailings, alternative survey administration modes, and reminders, was evaluated in terms of effects on response rates and response bias. Demographic and baseline smoking-related characteristics were compared for those responding on time to the initial mailed follow-up survey, reluctant respondents who did not respond initially but eventually completed a survey after further prompting, and nonrespondents. Results showed that incentives and persistent efforts were effective in substantially increasing the response among 2,231 eligible participants, more than doubling the response rate (from 24.9% to 52.7%). The characteristics of ontime, reluctant, and nonrespondents did not differ significantly in terms of sociodemographic characteristics. On the other hand, on-time respondents were different from both reluctant respondents and nonrespondents in terms of smoking-related behaviors.
ISSN:0163-2787
1552-3918
DOI:10.1177/016327870002300203