Getting the Real Story from Patients

Getting the Real Story from Patients By Kathleen Hoffman, PhD, MSPH Humans evolved in a storytelling milieu where stories taught and explained the world around us. Our brains carry this legacy, research shows that the brain can store more information and retrieve it more easily when it is in story form. Narrative is easier to understand, is more engaging, and is an effective tool to communicate science to lay individuals.1,2 Personal narratives make science relatable. But mistakes made in the process of capturing a patient narrative can be cumulative. When writing native advertising (sponsored content), copy [...]

Getting the Most from Online Surveys

Getting the Most from Online Surveys By Kathleen Hoffman, PhD, MSPH Do you wonder about online surveys? Are they reliable? Is there bias? A recent article by the Pew Research Center For Weighting Online Opt-In Samples, What Matters Most? 1provides guidance to allay those concerns. Pew experimented with different procedures for weighting results from surveys with online opt-in samples to discover which techniques best reduced bias on estimates. They compared online results with the results given for 24 benchmark questions drawn from “high-quality federal surveys,” public surveys that were conducted using more traditional methods. This was [...]

The Case for Online Consumer Recruiting

The Case for Online Consumer Recruiting Over the past few years, recruiting for consumer healthcare market research has undergone a drastic change. In the past, pharma clients would take their business questions to their research vendors, who could easily leverage panel companies to fill the desired project samples and ultimately deliver successful insights back to their clients. As the industry has shifted its focus to oncologic conditions, rare diseases, orphan drugs and otherwise underserved populations, vendors are struggling to access these small, unique patient populations, resulting in partial, or even total, failures in fielding. I recently addressed [...]