The NHGRI, as an institute of the NIH (National Institutes of Health), is focused on the role of genomics in human health and disease. Working with key members of the genomics community, the NHGRI recently published its strategic vision in Nature.
With hope and anticipation, the NHGRI boldly predicts that . . .
One of the most common questions I am fielding today—with COVID-19 spreading across the nation, is now a good time to conduct surveys? Is the pandemic having an impact on response rates?
As one of my favorite grad school professors, Mick Couper, loved to say, “It depends.”
Whether one engages in a survey right now will depend on their current status. This may not be a good time to survey emergency department staff. Professionals who are engaged in conducting online surveys may also have their hands full of work (from home) and may not have much extra time to spare. But if you are surveying the general population, with exploding rates of unemployment, you may have better luck. Students in higher education have been ripped from their regular social routines and disconnected from others. They may welcome an opportunity to share their experiences . . .
Text messages (also known as Short Message Service, or SMS) have become the go-to medium when contacting others. This is especially the case for today’s college students, who seem to conduct their social and even business lives completely via messaging service.
SoundRocket examined the data surrounding the efficacy of using SMS when surveying college students, resulting in presentation at a past American Association of Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) Conference.
SoundRocket and Central Michigan University announce today the opening of the fist implementation of the National Campus Climate Survey with students at Central Michigan University. The National Campus Climate Survey is a collaboration between SoundRocket and the University of Michigan Program in Society, Population, and Environment.
This is a first for the Launch Pad blog – a complete republish (with permission) of an article from another source. The article included below hit on something that I feel strongly about – enough so that just a summary would not do it justice.
Science is learning and growth in knowledge. If we got it all “right” the first time, it would be a downright boring process (and not science!). Science is about making mistakes, learning from them, and gradually (or sometimes not so gradually) improving on a shared general knowledge.
And if you could take a genetic test to determine if you have the gene mutations that could show you have an increased risk of having Alzheimers Disease, would you? As the U.S. FDA has started regulating and approving these tests, SoundRocket asks: are there any potential harms and limitations?
Care should always be taken to only use previous data when it is methodologically important to do so. Here are the 5 times that reusing data to enhance your survey is actually ok.
Most surveys of alcohol-use ask about behaviors and patterns that happen days, weeks months or even years ago. It’s all retrospective recollection from study participants. It’s useful for identifying general trends but it’s fraught with measurement errors. And when the topic of the study is binge drinking, errors involving memory can increase. — even if you’re asking the question the next day.
It has been a while since I have communicated about the importance of checklists. It feels that the time is right to do so again… as it will become a more and more important element to what we do as we grow.