The cost of conducting face-to-face household interviews in a rural, Native American population. The North Carolina Native American Cervical Cancer Prevention Project.
BACKGROUND
This article focuses on planning, developing, implementing, and evaluating the data collection method used for evaluating a community health education program in a rural setting, the North Carolina Native American Cervical Cancer Prevention Program.


METHODS
Evaluation of program effectiveness used face-to-face interviews with a randomly selected sample of women from the target population. Selection of a data collection method was based on thorough community and program analysis. Each element of the community's analysis revealed key cultural, environmental, and procedural factors that affected the selection of an appropriate data collection method.


RESULTS
Costs per completed interview varied over time, ranging from a low of $48 during the height of survey activity to $243. The average cost per completed interview overall was $113.


CONCLUSIONS
Several factors contributed to the overall costs of interviews, including the economy of the community, the number of call-backs made to contact women, and local environmental conditions.
Blinson
K
K
Department of Public Health Sciences, Bowman Gray School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, USA.
Dignan
M
M
Michielutte
R
R
Wells
H B
HB
D003365:Costs and Cost Analysis; D003466:Cultural Characteristics; D005260:Female; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D007198:Indians, North American; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D009657:North Carolina; D012424:Rural Population; D002583:Uterine Cervical Neoplasms / Q000191:economics / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000517:prevention & control