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Self-reported data in environmental health studies: mail vs. web-based surveys

BACKGROUND: Internet has been broadly employed as a facilitator for epidemiological surveys, as a way to provide a more economical and practical alternative to traditional survey modes. A current trend in survey research is to combine Web-based surveys with other survey modes by offering the partici...

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Autores principales: Cantuaria, Manuella Lech, Blanes-Vidal, Victoria
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6909640/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31830906
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12874-019-0882-x
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author Cantuaria, Manuella Lech
Blanes-Vidal, Victoria
author_facet Cantuaria, Manuella Lech
Blanes-Vidal, Victoria
author_sort Cantuaria, Manuella Lech
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Internet has been broadly employed as a facilitator for epidemiological surveys, as a way to provide a more economical and practical alternative to traditional survey modes. A current trend in survey research is to combine Web-based surveys with other survey modes by offering the participant the possibility of choosing his/her preferred response method (i.e. mixed-mode approach). However, studies have also demonstrated that the use of different survey modes may produce different responses to the same questions, posing potential challenges on the use of mixed-mode approaches. METHODS: In this paper, we have implemented a statistical comparison between mixed-mode survey responses collected via mail (i.e. paper) and Web methods obtained from a cross-sectional study in non-urban areas of Denmark. Responses provided by mail and Web participants were compared in terms of: 1) the impact of reminder letters in increasing response rates; 2) differences in socio-demographic characteristics between response groups; 3) changes on the likelihood of reporting health symptoms and negative attitudes towards environmental stressors. Comparisons were mainly performed by two sample t-test, Pearson’s Chi-squared test and multinomial logistic regression models. RESULTS: Among 3104 contacted households, 1066 residents decided to participate on the study. Out of those, 971 selected to respond via mail, whereas 275 preferred the Web method. The majority of socio-demographic characteristics between these two groups of respondents were shown to be statistically different. The use of mailed surveys increased the likelihood of reporting health symptoms and negative attitudes towards environmental stressors, even after controlling for demographic characteristics. Furthermore, the use of reminder letters had a higher positive impact in increasing responses of Web surveys when compared to mail surveys. CONCLUSIONS: Our main findings suggest that the use of mail and Web surveys may produce different responses to the same questions posed to participants, but, at the same time, may reach different groups of respondents, given that the overall characteristics of both groups considerably differ. Therefore, the tradeoff between using mixed-mode survey as a way to increase response rate and obtaining undesirable measurement changes may be attentively considered in future survey studies.
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spelling pubmed-69096402019-12-30 Self-reported data in environmental health studies: mail vs. web-based surveys Cantuaria, Manuella Lech Blanes-Vidal, Victoria BMC Med Res Methodol Research Article BACKGROUND: Internet has been broadly employed as a facilitator for epidemiological surveys, as a way to provide a more economical and practical alternative to traditional survey modes. A current trend in survey research is to combine Web-based surveys with other survey modes by offering the participant the possibility of choosing his/her preferred response method (i.e. mixed-mode approach). However, studies have also demonstrated that the use of different survey modes may produce different responses to the same questions, posing potential challenges on the use of mixed-mode approaches. METHODS: In this paper, we have implemented a statistical comparison between mixed-mode survey responses collected via mail (i.e. paper) and Web methods obtained from a cross-sectional study in non-urban areas of Denmark. Responses provided by mail and Web participants were compared in terms of: 1) the impact of reminder letters in increasing response rates; 2) differences in socio-demographic characteristics between response groups; 3) changes on the likelihood of reporting health symptoms and negative attitudes towards environmental stressors. Comparisons were mainly performed by two sample t-test, Pearson’s Chi-squared test and multinomial logistic regression models. RESULTS: Among 3104 contacted households, 1066 residents decided to participate on the study. Out of those, 971 selected to respond via mail, whereas 275 preferred the Web method. The majority of socio-demographic characteristics between these two groups of respondents were shown to be statistically different. The use of mailed surveys increased the likelihood of reporting health symptoms and negative attitudes towards environmental stressors, even after controlling for demographic characteristics. Furthermore, the use of reminder letters had a higher positive impact in increasing responses of Web surveys when compared to mail surveys. CONCLUSIONS: Our main findings suggest that the use of mail and Web surveys may produce different responses to the same questions posed to participants, but, at the same time, may reach different groups of respondents, given that the overall characteristics of both groups considerably differ. Therefore, the tradeoff between using mixed-mode survey as a way to increase response rate and obtaining undesirable measurement changes may be attentively considered in future survey studies. BioMed Central 2019-12-12 /pmc/articles/PMC6909640/ /pubmed/31830906 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12874-019-0882-x Text en © The Author(s). 2019 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research Article
Cantuaria, Manuella Lech
Blanes-Vidal, Victoria
Self-reported data in environmental health studies: mail vs. web-based surveys
title Self-reported data in environmental health studies: mail vs. web-based surveys
title_full Self-reported data in environmental health studies: mail vs. web-based surveys
title_fullStr Self-reported data in environmental health studies: mail vs. web-based surveys
title_full_unstemmed Self-reported data in environmental health studies: mail vs. web-based surveys
title_short Self-reported data in environmental health studies: mail vs. web-based surveys
title_sort self-reported data in environmental health studies: mail vs. web-based surveys
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6909640/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31830906
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12874-019-0882-x
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