Techniques for Door-to-Door Surveys
Esther Schiller has done many door-to-door surveys and received funding to conduct them. She says:
It's important to go over the questions with the people who are doing the surveys so that they themselves understand them.When going door to door, we work in pairs in the same building so we can keep an eye on each other. We do not enter a unit (usually). We have cell phones so we can stay in touch with each other.We introduce the survey to the person who answers the door. "We are doing a survey for the L.A. County Dept. of Public Health. It's about apartment living and tobacco smoke. It will just take a few moments."
If people say no, that's fine. Thank them. Keep a record of where you've been so you don't go to the same place twice. We don't ask permission of management. If you were going door to door for a candidate, you wouldn't ask permission of management. If the main door is locked to the bldg., we wait for someone to let us in.
The Purpose of the Door-to-Door Survey
Many of the surveys Esther’s group took in CA were taken to establish the public support for policy change and not necessarily to work with the management for policy change.
If the objective is policy change and you know the manager, then it would probably be good to get their support and endorsement. They could let residents know that you are coming and it might make it easier. Even if you don't know the manager, it still might be good to contact them and offer to take the survey anyway. Policy change in multiunit residential buildings will likely be easier if the manager supports or is aware it is happening, and you may gain a new partner. If the objective is to determine public support for smoke-free policies, then permission is probably not be necessary and may help convince management to consider implementing a policy.
The Alamosa Experience with Surveys in Public Housing in Alamosa (2010)
Ola Bovin conducted door-to-door surveys of Alamosa Public Housing residents in the summer of 2009. He wrote:
I didn’t use these tips although I wish I had. I learned that it would be good to field test the survey before going to the place where the survey is supposed to be used. I had some questions that didn’t work so well. I did ask the managers for permission and they were fine with us doing the survey. I used a map of the apartments and marked it to indicate when people weren’t home, when they denied doing the survey, and when we had finished. We always walked in pairs to go door to door. Many times it was the child answering the door, then we asked when the parent would be back and marked it as un-answered. We gave a modified quit kit from the quit line to each participant (the one for pregnant women) but we changed the leaflet depending on the language spoken. In our climate it is a good thing to plan the survey for the warm season so we don’t have to stand in the door when it is cold. I had a bag with surveys and quit kits in English and one bag with the same in Spanish.
GASP of Colorado
(Group to Alleviate Smoking Pollution)
Boulder CO
303-444-9799
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