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Frequently Asked Questions

Why should I complete the survey, aren’t you just being nosey?

Completion of the survey is voluntary. However, your answers are vitally important to us, by filling in this questionnaire you will provide valuable information on the types of social contact through which diseases (such as pandemic 'flu) can spread. By completing this survey you will help us to better predict the spread of infection and therefore be able to provide better advice to the government (and government agencies) about the control of infection.

We are not being nosey, your answers cannot be linked directly to you and we are generally interested in aggregate patterns of behaviour rather than examining individual answers in detail.

Who should fill in the questionnaire?

We have sent these survey packs to household addresses. We would like the members of the household to select a person at random from the people who normally live there and who are willing to participate. The rest of the household, and all your family and friends, can complete the same survey online at www.contactsurvey.org.

We are interested in the social contacts made by everyone, both adults and children. We would like everyone in a household to participate if possible, using our website survey. Even babies can be included as participants if their parent or guardian can complete the questionnaire on their behalf.

We consider the people who normally live at your household to include everyone you share a kitchen with. Children under the age of 16 will require consent from their parent or guardian. Children under the age of 11 may need help from an adult to complete this survey.

How can we pick a person in our household at random?

One easy way to do this is to pick the person who had the last birthday, from the household members willing to participate. That person can complete the questionnaire about who they met on the day requested.

Another way is to use playing cards. Take as many cards from a pack as there are people in the household willing to take part, but ensure that one of the cards is a joker. Shuffle the cards well and deal one to each of the candidates. Whoever receives the joker should complete the questionnaire about who they met on the day requested.

I'm uncomfortable giving you all this personal information, can I leave sections blank?

Yes, you can leave sections blank, but the more information you can provide the more helpful your answers will be to us. Please remember that all your answers are anonymous, and that we will make no attempt to identify individuals. Also the names that you fill in on Part A should not be sent to us, which again protects your privacy.

How can I be sure my answers are anonymous?

We have taken every possible precaution to ensure that your answers remain anonymous and confidential. There is no way in which we can link you to the questionnaire sheet that you return (all questionnaires are identical except for the day of the week). The names that you fill in on Part A should not be sent to us, which also helps to maintain anonymity. Your answers will be sorted on a secure and dedicated computer, and the paper version of your questionnaire will be destroyed. Your answers will only be used by researchers in our group for predicting the spread of infections, and by approved scientists working in this area. Your answers have little or no commercial value and will never be distributed outside of the scientific community. Any scientific publications written using this data will never identify individual questionnaire results.

Finally, all our procedures have under-gone full independent ethical approval.

I'm not sure I can remember everyone I met, what should I do?

Remembering everyone isn't quite a hard as it first sounds. Its usually best to think back through the day, from getting up in the morning, going to work/school, lunch-time, afternoon, evening and finally night-time. We have found that most people are very good at remembering who they met, especially their frequent and important contacts.

Even if you fail to remember everyone that you met, information on the people that you remember will still be very valuable to us.

I don’t know everyone’s name to fill in Part A, what should I do?

This is not a problem. Part A is for your benefit, we do not want this section returned to us. Simply use any description that will help you identify this person; for example "Woman at till", "Man on bus", "Cleaner at work", etc.

I've had more contacts than there are spaces, what should I do?

There are two things you can do.

Firstly, it might be possible for you to group many of your contacts together if you have seen them all in similar situations – use the Group section at the bottom of the form for this. For example, you may want to group together customers, people in a meeting, a group of friends etc.

Secondly, if there still isn't enough room, we would like you to tell us about the additional number of contacts you had using the box at the bottom-right of the questionnaire.

I forgot to complete my survey for the given day, can I fill it in for another day?

Unfortunately no. One of the things we are interested in is the variation between different days of the week. Your survey has been issued for a particular day, and we would like answers for that day. However, there are two options available: either complete your survey for the specified day next week; or complete the questionnaire on-line for any day you wish.

I've made a mistake on the form, what can I do?

Don't worry. If the mistake is just a single box, then scribble out your wrong answer and cross the correct box. If the mistake is a single line then cross out the entire line and start again. Such mistakes should be identified by our computer systems and the questionnaire examined manually.

Is there anything else I can do to help?

By completing the questionnaire you have already been a big help. However, the success of our science depends on the number of responses we get, so it would be great if you could encourage others to complete our on-line version of the questionnaire or if you could complete the on-line questionnaire for another day.

What advice can you give on reducing my risk of catching 'flu?

Our best advice is to follow the directions on the Department of Health web site. Basically this involves: good basic hygiene measures – such as frequent hand-washing; and minimising situations in which you are likely to encounter many people – especially if you believe you may be infected.

If a national-scale epidemic does occur then more drastic measures may be necessary, but the Department of Health already has a variety of contingency measures in place to deal with this eventuality.