[T]he Castleton Polling Institute has won a $400,000 contract to help design an app to let researchers gather public health data by sending out two- to three-question surveys.
The pilot app will be directed at students older than 18 and will be field tested this fall in the Vermont State Colleges, including Castleton University. Public health experts and epidemiologists from Stanford University will partner with Castleton on the project for the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists.
“It’s a coup for Castleton,” said Rich Clark, director of the polling institute at the university. “It is a pilot project, but if it is successful it could be a new way for collecting some of this important public health data.”
The project is partly a response to the challenges of polling in the digital age. Fewer people have landlines and thus are not easily reachable by pollsters. For young people, texting or social media may be their primary means of communication.
“There’s been a shift in culture,” said Amanda Richardson, associate director of the polling institute. “The question is, ‘How do we adjust our methods?’”
Clark said the app will aim to provide valid and accurate data quickly and in a format that is not burdensome for the user. The questions for the pilot app, which were drawn from previous online surveys and chosen by the Stanford researchers, deal with a variety of public and mental health issues.
He said addressing privacy concerns will be key to the project’s success. Even if smartphone users are comfortable — or at least indifferent — about sharing personal data online, they may be less willing to answer questions about their own health issues or risky behavior.
According to Clark, in developing the app pollsters will be partnering with an organization whose computer servers comply with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act’s data restrictions, and researchers will never see individual-level data. “We’re building in a lot of security protections,” Clark said, “so that we protect the confidentiality of the survey respondent.”
The app could have a variety of real world applications. For example, as researchers try to monitor the spread of Zika, a mosquito-borne virus that has been linked to birth defects, they could employ the app to gauge public awareness of the disease. Or it could be used in the aftermath of a mass shooting to evaluate mental health impacts.
But for now, said Clark, researchers have to see if students in Vermont respond to the app. Clark said the pilot project will test three things: Whether young people are likely to download the app, whether they then bother to answer the questions, and finally whether the data measure up.
Richardson said they’d be very pleased to enlist the participation of 500 students when they launch the app in late September during a two-week enrollment period. The project is to be completed by February.
