Braekman Elise, Charafeddine Rana, Berete Finaba, Bruggeman Helena, Drieskens Sabine, Gisle Lydia, Hermans Lize, Van der Heyden Johan, Demarest Stefaan
Department Epidemiology and public health, Sciensano, Brussels, Belgium.
Arch Public Health. 2023 Jul 4;81(1):124. doi: 10.1186/s13690-023-01135-x.
Survey data were needed to assess the mental and social health, health related behaviors and compliance with preventive measures of the population during the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, the pandemic challenged classical survey methods. Time and budgetary constraints at the beginning of the pandemic led to ad hoc recruitment of participants and easily manageable data collection modes. This paper describes the methodological choices and results in terms of participation for the COVID-19 health surveys conducted in Belgium.
The COVID-19 health surveys refer to a series of ten non-probability web surveys organized between April 2020 and March 2022. The applied recruitment strategies were diverse including, amongst others, a launch through the website and the social media of the organizing research institute. In addition, the survey links were shared in articles published in the national press and participants were requested to share the surveys in their network. Furthermore, participants were asked consent to be re-contacted for next survey editions using e-mail invitations.
These mixed approaches allowed to reach a substantial number of participants per edition ranging from 49339 in survey 1 to 13882 in survey 10. In addition, a longitudinal component was created; a large share of the same individuals were followed up over time; 12599 participants completed at least 5 surveys. There were, however, sex, age, educational level and regional differences in participation. Post-stratification weighting on socio-demographic factors was applied to at least partly take this into account.
The COVID-19 health surveys allowed rapid data collection after the onset of the pandemic. Data from these non-probability web surveys had their limitations in terms of representativeness due to self-selection but were an important information source as there were few alternatives. Moreover, by following-up the same individuals over time it was possible to study the effect of the different crisis phases on, amongst others, the mental health. It is important to draw lessons from these experiences: initiatives in order to create a survey infrastructure better equipped for future crises are needed.
在新冠疫情期间，需要调查数据来评估民众的心理和社会健康、与健康相关的行为以及对预防措施的遵守情况。然而，疫情给传统的调查方法带来了挑战。疫情初期的时间和预算限制导致采用临时招募参与者和易于管理的数据收集方式。本文描述了在比利时进行的新冠健康调查在参与度方面的方法选择和结果。
新冠健康调查指的是2020年4月至2022年3月期间组织的一系列十次非概率网络调查。应用的招募策略多种多样，包括通过组织研究所的网站和社交媒体发布，此外，调查链接在国家媒体发表的文章中分享，并要求参与者在其社交网络中分享调查。此外，还要求参与者同意通过电子邮件邀请在下一版调查中再次被联系。
这些混合方法使得每个版本都能吸引大量参与者，从调查1中的49339人到调查10中的13882人。此外，还建立了纵向跟踪机制；随着时间推移，很大一部分相同个体被跟踪；12599名参与者至少完成了5次调查。然而，在参与度方面存在性别、年龄、教育水平和地区差异。至少部分考虑到这一点，对社会人口因素进行了事后分层加权。
新冠健康调查在疫情爆发后实现了快速数据收集。这些非概率网络调查的数据由于自我选择在代表性方面存在局限性，但由于几乎没有其他选择，它们是重要的信息来源。此外，通过对相同个体进行长期跟踪，可以研究不同危机阶段对心理健康等方面的影响。从这些经验中吸取教训很重要：需要采取举措创建一个为未来危机更好配备的调查基础设施。
