Recruitment, response analyses and methods

For many scientific questions, it is important that the composition of the study population under investigation corresponds approximately to the composition of the underlying population so that representative (generally valid) statements can be made on the basis of the study results. Unfortunately, the willingness to participate in health studies has fallen continuously in recent years, so that the representativeness of the study populations is less and less guaranteed. There is therefore a need for (1) procedures to improve the willingness to participate (response) and (2) methods for the unbiased estimation of relevant population parameters.

The expert group ‘Recruitment, response analyses and methods’ is therefore dedicated to the following tasks and objectives:

• Development of methods to design the invitation process in such a way that the willingness to participate in the baseline study and all follow-up studies is as high as possible and independent of the socio-demographic characteristics of the invited persons
• Analyses on the question of which population groups are more or less frequently represented in the German National Cohort (NAKO)
• Determination of correction weights for prevalence estimates that take into account the influence of the sampling design as well as the influence of the willingness to participate and the sociodemographic characteristics of the invited persons.