A Systematic Literature Review on Response Rates across Racial and Ethnic Populations

Abstract

nderstanding and reducing health disparities as well as promoting equality for ethnic or racial population health have become important priorities among researchers and governments as populations of western countries are becoming ethnically and racially diverse. For example, to date, over 5 million (16.2%) Canadians consider themselves non-White and non-Aboriginal (i.e., visible minorities) and it is estimated that this number will steadily increase over the next decade due to immigration. 1 Therefore, researchers are either analyzing available data or are collecting ethnic or racial information to document ethnic/racial disparities and monitor population health.Ethnicity/racial information is not commonly collected in Canada (such as in hospital discharge abstract data) as it presents challenges due to the sensitivity and ethical responsibilities when acquiring this information from individuals. To fully use the available secondary administrative data, surnames, geographic codes and country of birth indicators have been used in research as proxies to define ethnicity or race. 2-4 However, these methods are limited due to misclassification of ethnicity for some individuals. Thus, many researchers are relying on primary data collection through various survey methods, such as the Canadian Community Health Survey or the National Population Health Survey that collected selfreported ethnicity.Obtaining valid information from a representative sample is crucial for primary data collection. As there is no systematic review on this subject, we questioned whether minority ethnic populations participate in surveys as actively as the majority ethnic population, which in developed countries is most commonly Whites. The rationale for raising this question among ethnic minority populations is related to: limited language capacity, limited interests in research, inexperience in participation in studies, as well as cultural differences and sensitivities. This paper describes a systematic literature review to document response rates across racial and ethnic populations in order to provide evidence to estimate potential response bias of ethnic study populations. METHODS

Endometrial Cancer Survivors’ Perceptions of Provider Obesity Counseling and Attempted Behavior Change

“…Usual mail survey response rates range from 20% to 70% depending on the population surveyed. 26 Although the relatively high response rate in our study is encouraging, we are unable to account for the opinions of nonresponders. Our response rate is significantly higher than the only other available patient survey on this topic (28.3%), 24 which we attribute to reminder postcards, clinic room posters describing the study, and the strong commitment our patients have to participating in research to help women with gynecologic malignancies.…”

Childhood cancer survivorship research in minority populations: A position paper from the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study

“…Among aging survivors of childhood cancer, it is plausible that participants in long‐term follow‐up research studies may not represent the larger underlying population of survivors in the United States, thereby potentially providing biased estimates of rates and risks that are not generalizable to all survivors. There is contradictory evidence related to differences in participation rates in observational studies by race/ethnicity . Differences in recruitment rates vary widely based on the methodological approaches used; higher minority participation rates are observed in those studies in which specific strategies are used to maximize minority participation …”

“…There is contradictory evidence related to differences in participation rates in observational studies by race/ethnicity . Differences in recruitment rates vary widely based on the methodological approaches used; higher minority participation rates are observed in those studies in which specific strategies are used to maximize minority participation …”

A Systematic Review of Online Response Rates in Four Counseling Journals

“…Mailed invitations have been shown to improve the demographic representativeness of survey participants in web‐based surveys, especially when a monetary incentive is included (Dykema, Stevenson, Klein, Kim, & Day, 2012). For example, Sykes, Walker, Ngwakongnwi, and Quan (2010) found that response rates were lowest for African American respondents and highest for Latina/o American respondents, with the response rate for White respondents falling between these two groups. Therefore, similar to mail‐based surveys, response rate techniques must also be examined to ensure that survey language and content are culturally flexible (Sykes et al, 2010).…”