Incentives

Providing incentives, such as cash, to potential survey respondents is an effective way to increase response rates and thereby possibly reduce the potential for non-response bias. Incentives work best when combined with a multiple contact recruitment approach, but incentives demonstrate their effectiveness in improving response rate even at the time of first contact. For interviewer-mediated surveys, the judicious use of incentives can reduce the number of contacts required to complete an interview. Because incentives increase early responses, incentives have demonstrated their time-efficiency and cost-effectiveness by reducing the labor and postage costs of additional contacts.