The Political Economy of Health Epidemics: Evidence from the Ebola Outbreak

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

“…The local NGO, which conducted the CATI survey, was provided with a total of 3779 phone numbers (Table 2) selected for the initial research project (Maffioli, 2020). Out of the 3779 phone numbers, the enumerators called back 2319 respondents in round 1 and 1460 respondents in round 2.…”

“…The final sample that was eligible for the initial research project (Maffioli, 2020) and consented to be interviewed through CATI included 2271 individuals (1957 from round 1 and 314 from round 2, Table 2) across the entirety of Liberia: These respondents were the ones completing the interview. In addition, 113 respondents refused to be interviewed; 94 were phone numbers that were dialled, for which the phone rang but the respondent did not pick up the call, and they were defined as break‐offs; 15 phone numbers were defined as ineligible as no screening was completed: These respondents reported that they have been already interviewed.…”

“…The goal of the initial project was to study the political economy of the 2014 West African Ebola epidemic (Maffioli, 2020), by gathering survey data on individuals' level of trust and perceived corruption toward several institutions, and their opinions on the government's actions during the response. However, successfully accomplishing this goal required surmounting significant survey data challenges.…”

“…Screened and selected respondents through the IVR survey were called back by real enumerators from a local NGO to conduct a 30‐ to 45‐minute interview. The sample for CATI was selected for the initial research project (Maffioli, 2020) among the phone numbers called in stage 1, for which the IVR survey was either complete ( I ) or partial ( P ).…”

“…The CATI survey was performed by 18 enumerators, five of whom were female and who had received training in human subject research and a training for mobile phone data collection. In addition to respondent and household socio‐demographics, the survey tool collected data on the following: (i) political outcomes, such as self‐reported level of trust in governmental and non‐governmental institutions and people, perceived corruption of similar institutions and past voting behaviour; and (ii) Ebola‐related questions, such as self‐reported Ebola incidence in the community, the level of information received, the experience with the response and perceptions about the government's performance (see Maffioli, 2020; Gonzalez & Maffioli, 2020, for the use of the survey sample for other research).…”