Sensitive Topics

This article provides guidance for how to collect data on sensitive topics.

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For certain topics, respondents will have incentives to conceal the truth, due to taboos, social pressure (e.g. Social Desirability Bias, fear of retaliation, etc. This can create bias, the size and direction of which can be hard to predict. To avoid this, it is essential to guarantee anonymity / confidentiality, and to develop Survey Protocols to guarantee privacy and maximize trust. If this is not sufficient, experimental methods such as Randomized Response Technique, List Experiments and Endorsement Experiments can be used.

Guidelines

Survey Protocols for Collecting Sensitive Data

• Make sure the respondent knows that responses will never be personally identified. This should be part of the Informed Consent module.
• Interviews should be done privately, without even family members around (especially for discussing issues such as domestic violence)
• Enumerators who share characteristics with the respondent (same gender, age, ethnic group, background) may garner increased trust
• Survey mode: self-administered questionnaires may provide more accurate data than interviews

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This article is part of the topic Questionnaire Design

Additional Resources

• Survey Methods for Sensitive Topics: https://graemeblair.com/papers/sensitive.pdf
• Bowling, Ann. "Mode of questionnaire administration can have serious effects on data quality." Journal of public health 27.3 (2005): 281-291. [1]