Background:
The topic for this audience assessment is testing of communication messages designed for early reentry into an area previously evacuated following a radiation emergency. Previous studies done by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Radiation Studies Branch (RSB) on testing messages for reentry six months after an emergency indicated an extreme unwillingness to return. CDC RSB will generate new messages focused on early education of the public immediately post-event concerning reentry, in addition to editing the messages tested previously that addressed reentry. The purpose of this audience assessment is to test new reentry messages as well as revised versions of the previously tested messages to assess the public’s willingness to return to a contaminated area after evacuation.
Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU) is to provide assistance to RSB to test these reentry messages.
The protocol describes:
Goal and Objectives
Target Audience
Methodology
Participant Information/Informed Consent
Handling of Data Records
Screening Instruments
Interviewer’s Guide
Information Sheet for Participants
Explore the effectiveness of the residual contamination messages among the public.
Objectives:
Evaluate the extent to which the messages effectively communicate the reentry phase (e.g., clean-up, returning to affected area) associated with elevated environmental radiation levels.
Evaluate the extent to which the messages are relevant, comprehensible, credible, appealing and motivate desired action.
The target audience for this research is the public. All participants will:
Be at least 18 years of age
Be comfortable conversing in English
The following criteria will be used to select public participants:
Have at least some high school education
Have not participated in a focus group/interview in the last 6 months
Does not work in any of the following fields:
For a market research company
For an advertising agency or public relations firm
In the media (TV/radio/newspapers/magazines)
As a healthcare professional (doctor, nurse, pharmacist, dietician, etc.)
Is not an employee for any of the following:
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
State or local health department
Department of Homeland Security
State or local emergency management agency
Nuclear power plant, radiation safety officer, health physicist or other radiation- related occupation
The respondents will provide approximate representation reflective of the community in terms of:
Gender
Age
Education
Race/ethnicity
It is understood that with the small number of respondents per group, it will not be possible to have respondents representing all combinations of characteristics in the groups.
OMB Approval:
This audience assessment has been approved by the Oak Ridge Site-Wide IRB with an exemption status (attached). This audience assessment will submit a package to the Health Message Testing System (HMTS) OMB # 0920-0572; expiration 3/31/2018.
Recruitment
The commercial market research facility in Atlanta, GA, will utilize their existing database to retrieve names of potential public participants. Participants will be screened via telephone using the screening questionnaire to ensure they meet the screening criteria (See Attachment A for Screener). Participation will be strictly voluntary.
Determining Tokens of Appreciation to Participants: The commercial market research facility will offer gift cards to the participants as a token of appreciation for participants’ willingness to engage in the project. The token of appreciation offered, $50 per participant, is impacted by a number of variables for this project, including the following:
Total participation time of 90 minutes: length of the focus group
Specifications that each participant has to meet to participate in the study
Recommendations from the market research facilities
Gift cards are neutral (not connected with a company, service or product) and have universal utility. It is usually more cost-effective and efficient to offer a token of appreciation, attractive to the participant, to mitigate the cost of the recruitment. The amount needs to be high enough that participants feel like it is worth their time to participate and cannot be so low that participants perceive their time and candid responses are under-valued. Likewise, incentives cannot be so high that participants become skeptical as to the intention of the interview.
In our experience, it is most cost effective to offer the recruiter-recommended amount, which results in a better show rate and lower recruiting fees. Recruiters from the market research facilities know from experience what various market segments expect to receive. Recruiters will be paid solely for the length of time required to recruit participants.
Focus Groups
Data will be collected using focus groups with up to 24 public participants recruited by commercial market research firms. Each focus group will have up to 4 participants and is expected to last about 90 minutes. The six focus groups will be held at a commercial market research facility in Atlanta, GA. A professional moderator will guide the discussion of the focus groups. All groups will be conducted in English. The focus groups will be audio-recorded and transcripts will be prepared from these recordings.
During the beginning of the focus groups, the moderator will provide an overview of the study and ask the participant to introduce themselves (first name only). Next, the moderator will show a video to introduce the topic to the participants. The moderator will show the messages to the participants (See Attachment B). After the messages are shown, the moderator will ask questions to the participants about the content of the messages such as if the messages effectively communicate the health risk and recovery phase issues associated with elevated environmental radiation levels. Also feedback from participants will be used to determine if the messages are relevant, comprehensible, credible, appealing and motivate desired actions. The focus groups will conclude with questions to participants about information sources, such as spokespersons and communication channels. The moderator’s guide is included as Attachment C.
The possibility exists that some participants will find contemplation of such subject matter upsetting. Therefore, participants will receive contact information for CDC INFO and the RSB website at the end of the study.
Data Analysis:
ORAU staff will conduct a debriefing with the subcontracted moderator to identify overall impressions, observations, and themes from the data collection effort. Focus groups will be transcribed by a transcription firm. Using the moderator’s guide, researchers’ notes, and transcripts, ORAU staff will examine responses to identify emerging themes. The qualitative responses will be entered into qualitative analysis software, QSR International’s NVivo 10.0 and ORAU staff will code the transcripts. Upon completion of the analysis, a report will be produced for the RSB team.
The commercial market research facility will recruit the participants and the facility will not provide personal identifiers (e.g. last names, address, phone numbers) to ORAU or CDC. ORAU will only receive screening qualification criteria (first name, gender, race/ethnicity, etc.).
For focus groups, no personal identifiers (e.g., last name, last initial, address, completed screening instruments) are to be provided to ORAU or CDC.
Additionally, ORAU will:
Retain the audio recordings, and at least one copy of any report it produces;
Deliver the report to CDC;
Not deliver to CDC or others any personal identifiers of participants;
Retain records and audio recordings for up to three years, then burn, shred, or otherwise destroy them.
Report:
A final detailed PowerPoint summary report will include study purpose, methodology, participant selection criteria, key findings, representative quotes, study limitations, recommendations, and conclusions, including graphic presentation of data where appropriate.
Category of Respondent |
No. of Respondents |
Participation Time |
Burden |
Screener |
48 |
10/60 |
8 |
Focus group |
24 |
1.5 |
36 |
Totals |
72 (only 24 people will participate in focus group) |
1.66 |
44 |
| File Type | application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document |
| Author | Carera, Karen |
| File Modified | 0000-00-00 |
| File Created | 2021-01-22 |