Supervisory team
LSHTM
Prof. Phil Edwards, Faculty of Epidemiology (Lead supervisor)
https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/aboutus/people/edwards.phil
Nagasaki University
Assistant Professor Keisuke Ejima, Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Prof. Koya Ariyoshi (kari@nagasaki-u.ac.jp)
N.B: Prof Ariyoshi is tentatively a supervisor from NU, and this will be discussed once a place is offered
Project
High quality data collection is essential in Global Health research. Data are usually collected from study participants using one or more methods: interview, self-administered questionnaire, physical examination, or history-taking by a clinician. These data will then be analysed to answer a research question to help prevent illness, develop therapies, and improve Global health. This cannot be achieved if the data collection stage fails.
The evidence on improving response to self-administered questionnaires has been identified and synthesised.[1]
The evidence on improving data collected by other methods is less clear, however, and this project will aim to indentify and synthesise the evidence on improving data collected by these other methods.
The student will conduct systematic reviews of methods to increase response to participant interviews and methods to improve history-taking by a clinician.
These systematic reviews will provide the student with a large dataset of randomised evidence on data collection methods that has previously been analysed by the lead supervisor to demonstrate the importance of factors such as personalisation and questionnaire length in improving study participation,[2,3] and the relationship between response and size of monetary incentives.[4]
The student will analyse this dataset using meta analysis and meta-regressions to expore other factors of interest to the student that may also determine effective data collection (e.g., time, study topic, types of participants).
References
- Edwards PJ, Roberts I, Clarke MJ, Diguiseppi C, Wentz R, Kwan I, Cooper R, Felix LM, Pratap S. Methods to increase response to postal and electronic questionnaires. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2009 Jul 8;2009(3):MR000008. doi: 10.1002/14651858.MR000008.pub4.
- Scott P, Edwards P. Personally addressed hand-signed letters increase questionnaire response: a meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials. BMC Health Serv Res (2006) 6:111; DOI: 10.1186/1472-6963-6-111
- Edwards P, Roberts I, Sandercock P, Frost C. Follow-up by mail in clinical trials: does questionnaire length matter? Controlled Clinical Trials (2004) 25(1):31-52; DOI: 10.1016/j.cct.2003.08.013;
- Edwards P, Cooper R, Roberts I, Frost C. Meta-analysis of randomised trials of monetary incentives and response to mailed questionnaires. J Epidemiol Community Health 2005;59(11):987-99; DOI: 10.1136/jech.2005.034397
The role of LSHTM and NU in this collaborative project
Prof Edwards has conducted original research and supervised Masters dissertations in data collection methodology. Dr. Keisuke Ejima is honorary assistannt professor in School of Tropical Medicine and Global Health. Dr. Ejima received a PhD in Information Science and Technology from the University of Tokyo, Japan. Jointly they are well-positioned to supervise the proposed project.
Particular prior educational requirements for a student undertaking this project
Competency in mathematics.
Skills we expect a student to develop/acquire whilst pursuing this project
Systematic reviews and meta-analysis.