(Photo credit: Kaiser Family Foundation)

“Statistics are real people with the tears wiped away. When statistical data are presented, they seem sanitized and tend to distance the reader from the actual problem at hand.”  ~ Dr. B. Lee Green 

Let’s take a look at this graph, taken from the policy fact sheet “Sexual Health of Adolescents and Young Adults in the United States”, developed by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

This fact sheet provides key data on sexual activity, contraceptive use, pregnancy, prevalence of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and access to reproductive health services among teenagers and young adults in the United States.

The chart above is taken from this fact sheet, and the data and information is listed in the 2013 Kaiser Women’s Health Survey. To list some statistics:

**70% of women 19 to 24 rated confidentiality about use of health care such as family planning or mental health services as “important”; however, the majority of girls and women were not aware that insurers may send an explanation of benefits (EOB) that documents use of medical services that have been used to the principal policy holder, who may be a parent.

**Today, 21 states and DC have policies that explicitly allow minors to consent to contraceptive services, 25 allow consent in certain circumstances, and 4 have no explicit policy;

**38 states require some level of parental involvement in a minor’s decision to have an abortion, up from 18 states in 1991. 21 states require that teens obtain parental consent for the procedure, 12 require parental notification, and 5 require both.

Of course, the correlation makes sense: the older a woman is, the higher likelihood she is aware of what a EOB is and how health insurance companies many send them by mail to her home. In fact:

One of the earliest [Affordable care Act] provisions that took effect in September 2010 was the extensions of dependent coverage to young people up to age 26, who had the highest uninsured rate of any age group at the time the law was passed. In 2013, over four in ten (45%) women ages 18 to 25 reported that they were covered on a parent’s plan as a dependent. because that are adult children, the extension of coverage has raised concerns about their ability to maintain privacy regarding the use of sensitive health services such as reproductive and sexual health care and mental health. (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2013)

I also find it interesting that the younger a woman is, the higher she is to rate confidentiality when seeking various health care services. Also the fact that only 21 states and DC allow minors complete consent to access contraceptives and that most states require some level of parental involvement in a young person’s decision to have an abortion is worth looking into, especially in states that allow young people to access contraception without parental consent.

But we’re not here to talk about completely about the statistics. And we’re not here to provide a full-on critique of policy fact sheet.

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Developing survey questions is harder than it looks. Asking questions is easy, but asking direct, unbiased, and valid questions is more of an art form. There’s a lot that goes into it, including flow, how the questions tie into what your program evaluation wants to answer, and keeping your respondents engage enough to complete the survey.

Here are 10 common mistakes and my tips for avoiding them:

Not knowing your target audience: Understanding who your audience is can help you craft survey questions that are pertinent to them. Avoid using words or phrases that your respondents may not know the meaning of. Instead, use words and phrases that are tailored to your target audience. Are your surveying nurses, social workers, or teachers? It’s ok to use words or phrases that are most common to those target audiences. On the other hand, if you’re not sure if your audience will understand what you mean by “reproductive justice”, it’s best to gather insights from the program coordinator or workshop facilitator to see if this term has been discussed.

Not explaining WHY: Believe it or not, most respondents are willing to help you if you share the value in completing your survey. When a respondent knows what’s in it for them, there is likelihood that the survey gets completed. If respondents know that their responses can aid in determining pay raises or in the restructuring of an under-performing program’s activities you’re more likely to complete it. If an incentive (i.e. a gift card to the respondent’s favorite retail store, coffee shop, or to wherever Visa is accepted) is included when a respondent completes your survey, indicate that on your survey at the very beginning before respondents begin.

Including extensive demographic questions: When you ask too many demographic questions, it can result in taking up a lot of room that could have been used for other questions. Before you add in questions to gather information on a respondent’s income level, religion, socio-economical status, etc., consider if it’s appropriate and relevant to the overall survey and the basis of the evaluation. Also, unless the rest of your survey depends on these answers, consider leaving demographic questions for the end of the survey as they tend to be the more uninteresting parts of a survey for respondents to complete.

Asking too many questions: Tying into the second point, asking too many questions can be the downfall of your survey. There are a variety of question types—open-ended, multiple choice, Likert or interval (very satisfied, satisfied, neutral, dissatisfied, very dissatisfied), ratio (“How many days do you spend studying?”), and dichotomous (true/false, yes/no, agree/disagree)—but it’s more about the intent behind the question. My recommendation is to create a survey that can have up to 15 questions. Keep in mind that engagement levels wane, especially during an online survey where there are more distractions (i.e., social media, videos, online shopping, etc.) (more…)