Collecting Data During an Epidemic: A Novel Mobile Phone Research Method

Abstract

This study developed a data collection method, combining (i) random‐digit dialling and interactive voice response to sample and screen respondents and (ii) computer‐assisted telephone interviewing, to survey 2265 respondents during the 2014 Ebola epidemic. The response, cooperation, refusal and contact rates computed according to the American Association for Public Opinion Research were 51.97, 52.62, 41.85 and 98.77 per cent, for interactive voice response and 91.10, 91.65, 8.30 and 99.40 per cent for computer‐assisted telephone interviewing. A comparison with Demographic and Health Surveys confirmed that the sample is not nationally representative. However, this method offers promise for data collection at a low cost ($24) and without any in‐person interaction. © 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Teaching and incentives: Substitutes or complements?

“…Additional challenges in health crises often include underlying institutional mistrust and misinformation (Vinck et al, 2019) and logistical obstacles to needs assessments and outreach with vulnerable populations (Checchi et al, 2017). In this context, we demonstrate simple interventions that can complement phone data collection during epidemics Maffioli, 2020;Magaço et al, 2021). In particular, our Teaching intervention shows that providing feedback on knowledge-based questions is a feasible and impactful add-on to health surveys-for example, on "knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP)" surveys common in public health.…”

No going back: COVID-19 disease threat perception and male migrants' willingness to return to work in India

“…Data used in this study come from individual telephonic surveys with male migrants from three states in India – Bihar, Uttar Pradesh (UP), and West Bengal (WB). 1 This mode of data collection is becoming increasingly popular and has been previously used by Maffioli (2020) to survey respondents during an Ebola epidemic in Liberia in 2014 and more recently by Allen et al (2021) to study the economic and educational impact of COVID-19 in Mozambique. 2…”

Effectiveness of WhatsApp for Measuring Migration in Follow-Up Phone Surveys. Lessons from a Mode Experiment in Two Low-Income Countries during COVID Contact Restrictions

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