title: Increasing response rates in community health surveys administered by telephone.
abstract: This paper reports the effects of two methods used to increase response rates in a community health survey administered by telephone. Converting refusals resulted in an increase of 3.7% in the final response rate, while the investigation and identification of indeterminate telephone numbers increased the response rate by an additional 6.1%. Together, these methods resulted in an increase of 9.8%, from an initial response rate of 70.1% to a final lower-bound response rate of 79.9%. The use of these methods helped to reduce non-response bias at a minimal cost.
authors.forename: K R
authors.initials: KR
authors.lastname: Allison
authors.forename: K K
authors.initials: KK
authors.lastname: Yoshida
mesh_terms: D003625:Data Collection / Q000379:methods; D006306:Health Surveys / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D009864:Ontario; D012109:Research Support as Topic; D012494:Sampling Studies; D013689:Telephone