Att 6_SurveyFSP_ Participation Request Email

Attachment 6

Survey of Food Safety Programs Participation Request Email

Dear ___________,

My name is Elizabeth Armstrong-Mensah and I work with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The CDC is conducting a survey to learn more about the important work conducted by local and state health department food safety programs. The CDC is particularly interested in learning about any changes that may have occurred in these programs’ status or activities in recent years.

I am writing to invite you to complete this survey on behalf of your food safety program. The survey is voluntary, and will take about 2 hours to complete. We realize this is a time commitment, but information from you is important to helping us better understand food safety program activities, and we hope you will help us in this effort.

If you decide to participate, you can take the survey in one of two ways. You can take the survey on-line, if you have Internet Explorer 6. To complete the survey on-line, go to the following website: ___________ and enter the following password to log on:___________

If you wish to take a paper survey, please let us know by replying to this email. We will mail you the survey along with a self-addressed stamped envelope which you can use to return the survey to us.

The questions on this survey are about your food safety program, not you. None of the questions on the survey are about private or touchy matters. But if any questions make you feel uneasy, you can choose not to respond. We will not contact you further about any questions which you do not answer.

You will see that the survey does not ask for your name or for any other information that may identify you. However, the paper survey is stamped with a number. This number, along with the password for the on-line survey, matches to your name on a list. This list will only be used to follow up with those who have not sent us a response. Only study staff will have access to this list. After we have completed our follow-up, we will destroy the list. This will break any links between survey responses and the names of the health departments and the persons who completed the survey.

Please complete the survey by ______. If you have any questions, contact me at 770-488-3464 or at [email protected]. If you want to know more about your rights or feel you have been harmed as a research participant, please contact Leroy Richardson, 1600 Clifton Road, MS-D74, Atlanta, GA 30333.

Thank you in advance for your participation in this valuable study. We will use the information gained to better understand how we can help food safety programs in state and local health departments.

Sincerely,

Elizabeth Armstrong-Mensah, Ph.D.