Did it Work? Findings from a Flu Pilot Study Using Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and Live Interviewers
Vicki J. Pineau
NORC at the University of Chicago
Benjamin Skalland
NORC at the University of Chicago, Chicago, IL
Gillian Lawrence
NORC at the University of Chicago
NORC at the University of Chicago funded a pilot survey collecting seasonal flu vaccination information using a redirected in-bound telephone call sample from Reconnect Research, and compared flu vaccination estimates to CDC-published results for the 2016-2017 flu season. This non-probability sample, called MIDI CallsT, comes from intercepted telephone calls from people who mis-dialed a telephone number or experienced an incomplete or disconnected call. MIDI Calls are forwarded from telephone companies to Reconnect Research for research and marketing purposes; this system offers both an opportunity to access a large non-probability based sample of inbound calls and to concomitantly reduce telephone data collection costs by using Interactive Voice Response (IVR) interviewing. In early 2017, NORC fielded a pilot study using a sample of MIDI Calls and experimented with two telephone modes -- IVR alone and IVR routed to live interviews -- to conduct a telephone survey to estimate seasonal flu vaccination coverage rates for four target populations.