Full Text

Turn on search term navigation

This is an open access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.

Abstract

Objective

Retention to complete follow-up surveys in extensive longitudinal epidemiological cohort studies is vital yet challenging. All of Us developed pilot interventions to improve response rates for follow-up surveys.

Study design and setting

The pilot interventions occurred from April 27, 2020, to August 3, 2020. The three arms were: (1) telephone appointment [staff members calling participants offering appointments to complete surveys over phone] (2) postal [mail reminder to complete surveys through U.S. Postal Service], and (3) combination of telephone appointment and postal. Controls received digital-only reminders [program-level digital recontact via email or through the participant portal]. Study sites chose their study arm and participants were not randomized.

Results

A total of 50 sites piloted interventions with 17,593 participants, while 47,832 participants comprised controls during the same period. Of all participants, 6,828 (10.4%) completed any follow-up surveys (1448: telephone; 522: postal; 486: combination; 4372: controls). Follow-up survey completions were 24% higher in the telephone appointment arm than in controls in bivariate analyses. When controlling for confounders, telephone appointment and combination arms increased rates of completion similarly compared to controls, while the postal arm had no significant effect (odds ratio [95% Confidence Interval], telephone appointment:2.01[1.81–2.23]; combination:1.91[1.66–2.20]; postal:0.92[0.79–1.07]). Although the effects of the telephone appointment and combination arms were similar, differential effects were observed across sub-populations.

Conclusion

Telephone appointments appeared to be the most successful intervention in our study. Lessons learned about retention interventions, and improvement in follow-up survey completion rates provide generalizable knowledge for similar cohort studies and demonstrate the potential value of precision reminders and engagement with sub-populations of a cohort.

Details

Title
Improving follow-up survey completion rates through pilot interventions in the All of Us Research Program: Results from a non-randomized intervention study
Author
Cronin, Robert M  VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Feng, Xiaoke  VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Able, Ashley; Sutherland, Scott; Givens, Ben; Johnston, Rebecca; Depry, Charlene; Le Blanc, Katrina W; Caro, Orlane; Mapes, Brandy; Denny, Josh  VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Couper, Mick P; Chen, Qingxia; Irene Prabhu Das
First page
e0308995
Section
Research Article
Publication year
2024
Publication date
Oct 2024
Publisher
Public Library of Science
e-ISSN
19326203
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
3117025646
Copyright
This is an open access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.