Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2016 Apr 14:13:6.
doi: 10.1186/s12982-016-0046-y. eCollection 2016.

Maximising follow-up participation rates in a large scale 45 and Up Study in Australia

Adrian Bauman  1 , Philayrath Phongsavan  1 , Alison Cowle  2 , Emily Banks  3 , Louisa Jorm  4 , Kris Rogers  5 , Bin Jalaludin  6 , Anne Grunseit  1
Affiliations

Maximising follow-up participation rates in a large scale 45 and Up Study in Australia

Adrian Bauman et al. Emerg Themes Epidemiol. .

Abstract

Background: The issue of poor response rates to population surveys has existed for some decades, but few studies have explored methods to improve the response rate in follow-up population cohort studies.

Methods: A sample of 100,000 adults from the 45 and Up Study, a large population cohort in Australia, were followed up 3.5 years after the baseline cohort was assembled. A pilot mail-out of 5000 surveys produced a response rate of only 41.7 %. This study tested methods of enhancing response rate, with three groups of 1000 each allocated to (1) receiving an advance notice postcard followed by a questionnaire, (2) receiving a questionnaire and then follow-up reminder letter, and (3) both these strategies.

Results: The enhanced strategies all produced an improved response rate compared to the pilot, with a resulting mean response rate of 53.7 %. Highest response was found when both the postcard and questionnaire reminder were used (56.4 %) but this was only significantly higher when compared to postcard alone (50.5 %) but not reminder alone (54.1 %). The combined approach was used for recruitment among the remaining 92,000 participants, with a resultant further increased response rate of 61.6 %.

Conclusions: Survey prompting with a postcard and a reminder follow-up questionnaire, applied separately or combined can enhance follow-up rates in large scale survey-based epidemiological studies.

Keywords: Epidemiological studies; Follow-up; Recruitment strategies; Response rates.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Phases of testing different recruitment strategies
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Flow diagram of three mail-out enhanced recruitment strategies [Study 2]
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Galea S, Tracy M. Participation rates in epidemiologic studies. Ann Epidemiol. 2007;17(9):643–653. doi: 10.1016/j.annepidem.2007.03.013. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Steptoe A, Breeze E, Banks J, Nazroo J. Cohort profile: the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. Int J Epidemiol. 2012 - PMC - PubMed
    1. Howe LD, Tilling K, Galobardes B, Lawlor DA. Loss to follow-up in cohort studies bias in estimates of socioeconomic inequalities. Epidemiology. 2013;24:1–9. doi: 10.1097/EDE.0b013e31827623b1. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Jousilahti P, Salomaa V, Kuulasmaa K, Niemela M, Vartiainen E. Total and cause specific mortality among participants and non-participants of population based health surveys: a comprehensive follow up of 54,372 Finnish men and women. J Epidemiol Commun. 2005;59:310–315. doi: 10.1136/jech.2004.024349. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Kanuk L, Berenson C. Mail surveys and response rates: a literature review. J Market Res. 1975;12:440–453. doi: 10.2307/3151093. - DOI

LinkOut - more resources