Methods Blog

Title:

Offering pre-identified members of a new recruitment cohort in the HRS a short baseline survey prior to an actual recruitment wave offers response rate and efficiency benefits in the actual recruitment wave

Summary: In the 2016 HRS new cohort recruitment (which focused on recruiting LBBs into the study), HRS identified households that contained EGENX individuals (born 1966-1971) after completing household screening procedures, and labeled these individuals as “Pre-ID” EGENX individuals. In 2019, in an effort to introduce them to the study and “bring them on board” prior to the planned EGENX recruitment effort in 2022, HRS implemented a randomized experiment, where 60% of the pre-ID EGENX individuals were invited to complete a short, 30-minute version of the HRS baseline survey, and 40% were left untouched (and not recruited / contacted again until 2022). In the 2022 EGENX new cohort recruitment, the 708 individuals that completed the short baseline survey in 2019 had a “full baseline” response rate of 74%, as opposed to the fresh sample of 13,475 EGENX individuals, which had a baseline response rate of 31%. Further, of *all* the pre-ID individuals randomized to the two conditions in 2019, 18.7% of those *attempted* in 2019 completed the baseline in 2022 (Hours Per Interview in 2022 = 32), as opposed to 9.9% of those who were not attempted in 2019 (Hours Per Interview in 2022 = 33). In light of these positive effects of offering the short baseline survey three years prior to the actual recruitment wave (to introduce individuals into the study with a brief survey), HRS implemented this “short baseline” approach in 2025 with pre-ID’d MGENX households from the 2022 EGENX screening (in preparation for making the new cohort recruitment more efficient in 2028), completing 1,689 interviews with pre-ID’d MGENX individuals. The response rate for these 1,689 individuals will be tracked in comparison with the response rate for the fresh sample of MGENX households in 2028.

Submitted by: Brady West

Date: May 30, 2026