Cell phone survey

Abstract

The global rise in cell phones usage has undermined traditional data collection modes, notably landline surveys, and has elicited the development of novel survey methods and designs. Adopting a single landline frame survey is no longer viable, owing to its undesirable implications on response rate, coverage, as well as data representativeness and validity. Subsequently, researchers have developed methods to integrate the cell phone and landline frames, and conduct "dual frame" surveys using either overlapping or nonoverlapping modes of integration. Dual frame surveys have gained popularity as they were shown to enhance the quality of the collected data and improve the validity of national estimates. Of course, cell phone surveys, be it single frame or dual frame, are not void of methodological challenges relevant to sampling frames, participant selection, respondent burden, and collection of reliable and valid data. The evidence concerning the proper implementation of cell phone surveys, as well as the feasibility of a single frame cell phone survey is relatively recent especially when youth are the targeted population. Given their proliferation worldwide and the diminishing existing barriers, cell phones are expected to become an inevitable mode for collecting health survey data. Yet, the need remains for contextualizing their feasibility as per each country's settings and circumstances.