@article{22565,
  author = {Banks E. and Jorm L. and Phongsavan P. and Bauman A. and Rogers K. and Cowle A. and Jalaludin B. and Grunseit A.},
  title = {Maximising follow-up participation rates in a large scale 45 and Up Study in Australia},
  abstract = {<p>
BACKGROUND: The issue of poor response rates to population surveys has existed for some decades, but few studies have explored methods to improve the response rate in follow-up population cohort studies. METHODS: A sample of 100,000 adults from the 45 and Up Study, a large population cohort in Australia, were followed up 3.5 years after the baseline cohort was assembled. A pilot mail-out of 5000 surveys produced a response rate of only 41.7 %. This study tested methods of enhancing response rate, with three groups of 1000 each allocated to (1) receiving an advance notice postcard followed by a questionnaire, (2) receiving a questionnaire and then follow-up reminder letter, and (3) both these strategies. RESULTS: The enhanced strategies all produced an improved response rate compared to the pilot, with a resulting mean response rate of 53.7 %. Highest response was found when both the postcard and questionnaire reminder were used (56.4 %) but this was only significantly higher when compared to postcard alone (50.5 %) but not reminder alone (54.1 %). The combined approach was used for recruitment among the remaining 92,000 participants, with a resultant further increased response rate of 61.6 %. CONCLUSIONS: Survey prompting with a postcard and a reminder follow-up questionnaire, applied separately or combined can enhance follow-up rates in large scale survey-based epidemiological studies.
</p>
},
  year = {2016},
  journal = {Emerg Themes Epidemiol},
  volume = {13},
  pages = {6},
  month = {169709313583},
  isbn = {1742-7622 (Linking)},
  note = {Bauman, Adrian<br/>Phongsavan, Philayrath<br/>Cowle, Alison<br/>Banks, Emily<br/>Jorm, Louisa<br/>Rogers, Kris<br/>Jalaludin, Bin<br/>Grunseit, Anne<br/>England<br/>Emerg Themes Epidemiol. 2016 Apr 14;13:6. doi: 10.1186/s12982-016-0046-y. eCollection 2016.},
  language = {eng},
}