Introductory Letter

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APPENDIX N – Yellowstone Study Introductory Letter

ear __________,

Welcome back from your trip into the backcountry at Yellowstone National Park!

When you picked up your backcountry permit at the park, you filled out a form giving us permission to contact you about your trip. The National Park Service (NPS) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are doing a study to look at the health of park visitors who travel in the backcountry. Your answers to the study questions are very important and will help NPS and CDC improve guidelines for backcountry health. These guidelines will help protect future park users from illness and injury.

We are asking Yellowstone National Park visitors who traveled into the backcountry between May 1, 2008 and October 31, 2008 to answer questions about their experiences in the park. The Internet-based questionnaire will collect information about (1) water use, (2) food, (3) hygiene, (4) recreational water activities (such as boating and swimming), (4) animal contact, (5) your health, and (6) some personal information (such as age, relevant medical history, and previous backcountry experience).

This questionnaire is not meant to check whether you followed NPS Backcountry Use Regulations. The report sent to the National Park Service will be a summary of all the answers from the thousands of people visiting the backcountry. It will not contain your name. NPS will not be able to link your name to your answers. Your contact information will be deleted from our files when the study is finished. After you finish the questionnaire, you will not be contacted again.

This questionnaire should take about 50 minutes to complete. It is a thick document but you will skip many of the questions, depending on your answers (there are instructions with each question to guide you to the next appropriate question). When you finish the paper questionnaire, please return it to CDC using the pre-addressed stamped envelope provided.

If you prefer, you may also complete the questionnaire online. The Internet-based survey should take about 30 minutes to complete because the skips are done for you automatically. The questions in the Internet-based questionnaire are the same as those in the paper-based questionnaire. If you would prefer to complete the survey online, please click here: __________________________

We greatly appreciate your willingness to complete this survey.

If you have any questions about this study or your rights as a participant please call:

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Study questions: Please call Dr. Sharon Roy at 770-488-4412

Your rights as a participant: Please call CDC’s Human Research Protection Office at 1-800-584-8814 and leave a message including your name and phone number. Say you are calling about the Division of Parasitic Diseases’ web-based survey of Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks Backcountry Users (exempt protocol # 4583). Someone will call you back as soon as possible.

National Park Service

Study questions: Please call Lieutenant Commander David Wong at 202-513-7160 or Captain Charles Higgins at 202-513-7217

Sincerely,

Sharon Roy, MD MPH

Water and Environment Activity

Division of Parasitic Diseases

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

LCDR David Wong, MD

U.S. Public Health Service

National Park Service Office of Public Health

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