Response rate in phone surveys: Experiments to test the effect of pre-visits and financial incentives

Neupane, Sumanta; Nguyen, Phuong Hong; Avula, Rasmi; Shapleigh, Sara; and Heidkamp, Rebecca A. 2022. Response rate in phone surveys: Experiments to test the effect of pre-visits and financial incentives. New Delhi, India: International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). https://hdl.handle.net/10568/141133

Household surveys play an important role in collecting cross-sectional information across time among population subgroups including demographics, health and nutrition risk factors and coverage of inteventions. During COVID-19 related lockdowns, phone surveys became a popular modality to collect such information in a safe and cost-effective manner. Compared to surveys using in-person interviews, phone-based surveys have limitations of non-representativeness and non-response errors which can result in biased estimates. There are, however, ways to mitigate some of these challenges.