Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #114048

Heather Morrison, MA, Cindy Howes, MSW, and Angela DeBello, MA. Health Survey, Program and Policy Research Department, NORC at the University of Chicago, 55 E. Monroe, Suite 1800, Chicago, IL 60603, 312-759-5087, morrison-heather@norc.org

In response to observed health inequalities, public health research has increasingly focused on investigating health disparities between the general population and certain specialized subgroups. This trend has yielded several important programs aimed at reducing health disparities. One such program, Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health (REACH) 2010 supports community coalitions in designing, implementing, and evaluating community-driven strategies to eliminate health disparities. The evaluation of the REACH 2010 community programs relies, in part, on survey data collected via telephone and in-person interviews. For surveys such as this to be effective, investigators must identify and collect data from the targeted population(s). For REACH 2010, a screening questionnaire is administered to determine the racial/ethnic eligibility of household residents. Only residents who are deemed eligible are asked to participate in the main health survey. Unfortunately, screening efforts of this type increase interview length and require administration of sensitive questions before rapport is fully established with the respondent. Such screening efforts often result in relatively lower overall response rates than surveys with shorter or less sensitive screening questionnaires. As survey researchers increasingly seek to collect data with special populations, it is important to understand the expected response rate implications before operationalizing such screening-intensive study designs. In this paper we explore the effects of the screening process on response rates. We also discuss proven methods for improving response rates for screening-intensive surveys, such as decreasing respondent burden through more efficient questionnaire design and refining interviewers' scripts for explaining the screening process to respondents.

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