Abstract
BackgroundTo monitor the adoption of climate change adaptive behaviors in the population, public health authorities have to conduct national surveys, which can help them target vulnerable subpopulations. To ensure reliable estimates of the adoption of these preventive behaviors, many data collection methods are offered by polling firms. The aim of this study was to compare a telephone survey with a web survey on Lyme disease with regard to their representativeness.MethodsThe data comes from a cross-sectional study conducted in the Province of Québec (Canada). In total, 1003 people completed the questionnaire by telephone and 956 filled in a web questionnaire. We compared the data obtained from both survey modes with the census data in regard to various demographic characteristics. We then compared the data from both samples in terms of self-reported Lyme disease preventive behaviors and other theoretically associated constructs. We also assessed the measurement invariance (equivalence) of the index of Lyme disease preventive behaviors across the telephone and web samples.ResultsFindings showed that neither the telephone nor the web panel modes of data collection can be considered more representative of the target population. The results showed that the proportion of item non-responses was significantly higher with the web questionnaire (5.6%) than with the telephone survey (1.3%), and that the magnitude of the differences between the two survey modes was nil for 19 out of the 30 items related to Lyme disease, and small for 11 of them. Results from invariance analyses confirmed the measurement invariance of an index of adaptation to Lyme disease, as well as the mean invariance across both samples.ConclusionsOur results suggested that both samples provided similar estimates of the level of adaptation to Lyme disease preventive behaviors. In sum, the results of our study showed that neither survey mode was superior to the other. Thus, in studies where adaptation to climate change is monitored over time, using a web survey instead of a telephone survey could be more cost-effective, and researchers should consider doing so in future surveys on adaptation to climate. However, we recommend conducting a pretest study before deciding whether to use both survey modes or only one of them.
Highlights
To monitor the adoption of climate change adaptive behaviors in the population, public health authorities have to conduct national surveys, which can help them target vulnerable subpopulations
Our results suggested that both samples provided similar estimates of the level of adaptation to Lyme disease preventive behaviors
In studies where adaptation to climate change is monitored over time, using a web survey instead of a telephone survey could be more cost-effective, and researchers should consider doing so in future surveys on adaptation to climate
Summary
To monitor the adoption of climate change adaptive behaviors in the population, public health authorities have to conduct national surveys, which can help them target vulnerable subpopulations. With the unavoidable warming of the climate system more frequent climatic hazards, such as heat waves and floods, will result in greater health impacts on the population [1]. Higher heat exposure due to average temperature warming, as well as heat waves and urban heat islands, affects the health of organizations, systems, and populations [2,3,4]. Heat affects the health of populations by causing, for instance, increased air pollution, the spread of disease vectors, food insecurity, and undernutrition [5]. Ixodes scapularis tick, is slowly spreading further north due to rising global temperatures and are found in areas where they never were before and the disease affects an increasing number of Canadians since the last decade [6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13]. In Québec, where Lyme disease is a notifiable disease, there were 338 cases of Lyme disease contracted in 2019, compared to 66 in 2014 [15]
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