Public Health in the Rockies 2026

Public health initiatives depend upon accurate, actionable and community-driven data, collected through systematic and collaborative approaches. Surveys are one of the most efficient mechanism to gather insights that serve community members, program partners, and institutional stakeholders as they seek to frame data with community voice.

This interactive session is tailored for public health practitioners who want to build skills in survey design, especially those seeking to collect and translate data into meaningful public health action. Grounded in the conference theme, Stronger Together, this workshop is designed to elevate community perspectives and priorities. We introduce foundational survey design concepts and practical tools, and focus on evidence-based strategies to engage unique and hard-to-reach populations and best capture their authentic perspectives.

The workshop uses a unique practice-oriented approach. A didactic overview of survey design is followed by a hands-on seminar where participants identify a research question and define a population of interest. Through a series of modules using real-world examples and applied group and individual exercises, participants will build their own survey and explore free, commonly used resources and online survey tools. Workshop modules address common pitfalls, types of bias, participant privacy concerns, and resource management. Example Modules include:

* What are you asking? Together we will examine the intent of the survey including engaging stakeholders, defining metrics, avoiding ‘nice-to-know’ topics (Have you ever experienced the ‘How did my five-item survey become 20 minutes?’ conundrum), and prioritizing demographic information.
* Who are you talking to? Populations [SC1] of Focus, Modes of Contact and Modes of Completion: Populations of focus often determine contact mode, protocol and other considerations such as available resources, timeline for data collection, and use and type of incentives. These concepts are inter-dependent and each has unique challenges and solutions. We also discuss engagement strategies to increase response rates in an environment where people are inundated with “junk” communications.
* What do you mean? How questions and response options are worded is critical to ensuring you are collecting what you intend. We will discuss the pros and cons of using validated questions, assessing neutrality and reading comprehension using AI tools, recognizing and avoiding ‘double-barreled’ questions, when to use open-ended versus close-ended questions, and randomization of choice sets. We also illustrate the importance of survey validation among a sample of the intended populations, leveling surveys for reading comprehension, and the importance of trusted translations, as well as methods to encourage honest responses and ways to detect fraudulent responses.
* You are asking THIS first? Visual impact and ordering of questions is a rarely discussed but crucial art form in survey design. We review survey ‘blocks’ and the importance of question ordering and instructions, especially for topics that are complex, sensitive or may bias responses to subsequent questions. We also discuss using internal logic in various survey modes.