Public Health Rep

An important question in interpreting epidemiologic data is why some persons agree to participate in a health survey while others do not. Information about why people agree to interview or answer a questionnaire could help researchers to devise procedures for a health survey and to chose information to be communicated in the interview or questionnaire so as to increase subjects' participation. The authors interviewed 180 mothers who gave birth to a child with a birth defect and 198 mothers whose children were born without a birth defect. The interviews were part of two case-control studies to determine risk factors for selected birth defects. In the course of the interviews, each mother was asked why she agreed to be interviewed, and whether anything about the survey procedures that were followed could be improved. Among both the case mothers and the control mothers the most common reason for agreeing to be interviewed was humanitarian, expressed as "to help others" or "to prevent what happened to my baby from happening to babies in the future." Case mothers, more frequently than control mothers, gave as their reason for participating either to help themselves, their child, their family, or to further scientific understanding. Emphasizing these as benefits of participation to those who are survey subjects at the time of the initial contact could increase the proportion who agree to respond.

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Public Health Reports