Telephone for hire

Science Article

The center's Collaborative Data Services interviewers provide comprehensive survey support at low cost

Bruce Cummins and Eileen Van Hollebeke of Collaborative Data Services discuss strategies to boost survey response rates. Photo by Todd McNaught

Advances in cancer research require high-tech instruments that sequence DNA, magnify cells or purify proteins. Yet some of the most significant discoveries made at the center in breast, prostate and other cancers have relied on a simple device found in nearly every household and on every office desk: the telephone.

Through telephone surveys, researchers unearth the dietary habits, demographic factors and behaviors that influence why some individuals develop cancer and some do not. Ensuring that each step of every interview is identical and complete — essential requirements for good data collection — is a science unto itself. That's why many center researchers call on the expert team of interviewers at Collaborative Data Services to get the job done.

Telephone contact is used to complete surveys, schedule appointments or follow up on incomplete mail-in questionnaires. Some projects involve only dozens of participants, while others involve thousands. "Whatever the size or scope of the analysis, no job is too big or too small for the shared resource," said Scott Sutherland, CDS director.

"In the past, researchers have used CDS to handle the interviewing, primarily for long-term studies," he said. "We continue to take on those types of projects, but we want researchers to know that we can be called on in any capacity. Even if a study just needs to make some additional progress or fill in for someone on leave, we often can complete the job faster, more efficiently and with less expense than a project could by hiring additional staff."

Time, money savings

For Jennifer Marino, who leads a relatively small study with limited resources, CDS was a lifesaver.

"I'm a total CDS convert," said Marino, a project manager in the Public Health Sciences Division who is conducting a study of 700 women on the association between night-shift work and endometriosis.

"I'm a graduate student with a small amount of funding and basically working on my own," Marino said. "I didn't have the time to call 700 people by myself and still manage to do my other research, and hiring additional staff for such a small study didn't seem practical. But when I compared the cost of hiring temporary staff to CDS' rate, CDS was totally competitive — even better because I didn't have to put in the time to train a new person."

What's more, she said, the CDS interviewers have had an excellent response rate from study participants and are now working with her to develop strategies to boost rates even further.

The secret to CDS' interviewing success is their highly professional staff, Sutherland said.

"Our interviewer positions are not entry level jobs," he said. "We view this as a profession. We have staff who really want to work here, and many have personal reasons for working at a cancer research center."

"We look for interviewers with strong people skills, and those who understand that surveys must be conducted within strict limits to ensure that data collection is consistent," said Bruce Cummins, lead research-project interviewer. In addition to his role as interviewer, Cummins also provides training for interviewers who work directly for principal investigators at the center.

"An interviewer for a cancer-research study must be much more than a skilled conversationalist," said Eileen Van Hollebeke, CDS data operations manager. "Each interviewer goes through an extensive certification process before being assigned to a project. Our staff go through intense training before starting any project. Each study has a manual with such things as strategies for successful calling, study protocols, answers to frequently asked questions, disposition codes, how to avoid participant refusals, and the interview script, all of which is carefully dissected by our staff and the project staff to be sure there are no ambiguities."

The interviewers also go through role-playing exercises to ensure that they are prepared for issues we think are likely to arise. Any unforeseen issues that do arise are immediately caught and handled through CDS' ongoing quality control practices. Cummins regularly listens in on interviews to check on consistency and to help troubleshoot problems such as low survey-response rates. Additionally, a percentage of calls are routinely monitored for quality assurance.

CDS services 'indispensable'

For Anne Thompson, a project coordinator in PHS' Cancer Prevention Program, CDS' high-quality service proved "indispensable" for her smoking-prevention study. Cummins conducted the scheduling of six appointments for each of 900 participants who took part in the PATCH study, which evaluated the effectiveness of nicotine patches for heavy smokers.

"We had only three of our own staff on this study and we could never have handled all the scheduling," Thompson said. "Bruce made an excellent impression on our participants, who grew to know him as well as our own study staff. All the CDS interviewers have a lot of experience and are cross-trained in multiple skills. We couldn't have completed the study without them."

With the broad scope of services offered through CDS, Sutherland encourages scientific staff to consult his staff when proposing a new study.

"Chances are, we've got someone here who can help you out," he said.

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