Journal of Evaluations and the Health Professions--March 2003
Survey administrators face trade-offs between expending additional survey
resources to maximize response rates versus using fewer resources and accepting
lower response rates. Using data from the Community Tracking Study's Physician
Survey, we examined how survey estimates and data quality changed as additional
respondents completed the survey. Results showed that improvements in response
rates over the range examined (i.e., up to 65%) did not change estimates
appreciably nor affect data quality. As long as these results are not overstated
to imply that extremely low response rates are credible, this study may permit
researchers to disseminate interesting results in peer-reviewed journals even
when the response rate falls slightly short of current standards. It must also
be emphasized, however, that we were unable to measure the nonresponse effect of
those who were never interviewed. Achieving a response rate significantly above
65% might have changed the survey results appreciably.