Landfill Recruiting Screener
due in two weeks

Our client is interested in proposing an alternative location for a landfill that can take hazardous and medical waste.  The currently proposed location was chosen by the national company that is contracted to take care of solid waste in our area.  Our client is speculating that this site was probably chosen because it appears to make good economic sense from a logistical perspective.  Unfortunately, people living in the proximity of the proposed site have mobilized an opposition. 

Given the opposition to the proposed landfill site, our client would like to propose alternative locations that might lead to less opposition.  At this point, we are less interested in logistical issues and more interested in considering factors that might have an effect on the intensity of opposition to a landfill.  In conversation with her, we have hypothesized that these factors could include such issues as population density, per capita income, home ownership rates, education levels, and such. 

In order to gain insights regarding these sorts of factors, we could conduct exploratory interviews on a sample of people who could be affected by the proposal of a landfill near where they live.  Such interviews could be conducted in a variety of ways, e.g. by a visit to where people in the sample live, by calling on the phone to where they live, or by asking them to come to a research facility for a face-to-face individual interview or focus group session.  There are a number of tradeoffs regarding available resources, reachability, transportation, perceived confidentiality, and such, but we will opt for now to recruit for focus group sessions.  At this point in the process, we are not interested in designing an entire research study, but are only interested in how we would recruit a sample of people to interview.

Write a screener that could be used to recruit people who live in the county that our client eventually will select as having better potential for minimizing opposition to a landfill.  Although we haven't yet completed our demographic assessment and while it could be weeks before our client provides any feedback regarding that assessment, we can nonetheless move ahead and propose research that could be conducted no matter the location.  Some specific issues in recruiting are as follows:

  • We would like a sample of at least 48 residents (six focus group sessions of eight people) from the county that our client selects.

  • We want to recruit one extra person per session to make up for possible no-shows (recruit 54).

  • Of the 54 recruits, we would like

    • all to be residents of the target county
    • all to be either a head of household or the spouse of the head of household
    • no more than one respondent per household

    • 18 who live in a higher-density population area
      (in an apartment or in an area in which houses are on less than half acre lots)
    • 18 who live in a medium-density population area
      (houses are generally on lots larger than half acre, but less than five acres)
    • 18 who live in a lower-density population area
      (houses are generally on land of more than five acres)

    • 18 who have a household income of less than $25,000 per year
    • 18 who have a household income of $25,000 - $60,000 per year
    • 18 who have a household income of greater than $60,000 per year

    • 18 who have are high school graduates or less
    • 18 who have schooling beyond high school but not a 4-year degree
    • 18 who are college graduates (four year degree or greater)

  • Each individual session may include no more than three people from any one of the lines listed in the last three categories above.  The recruiter should keep track of recruits who fall into multiple categories, and this constraint applies even to such recruits.

  • Due to issues of liability, we cannot provide transportation even from volunteers. 

  • We don't have the resources to conduct the research with anyone who needs assistance with language translation.

  • The recruit would be paid $75 for a one-hour session.  (Each focus group session would run about 45 or 50 minutes.)

  • Perceptions regarding confidentiality are crucial.  Therefore, you must include the following statement in your screener: "Your identity will not be shared with anyone.  Any lists or other information with your name will be shredded after this project is completed."

A screener should include the following where possible:

  • The study number.
  • The client organization.
  • The client's name, address, phone number, fax number.
  • The cities from which you will be recruiting.
  • The interview session date and time for which you are recruiting.
  • Who you are recruiting.
  • How many you are recruiting.
  • The length of the interview.
  • The topic of the interview: be sure that it sounds interesting to the prospective recruit, but don't provide any more details than are necessary.
  • Directions to the facility (ask if a recruit knows).

Anything not to be read on the phone should be put in bold and capital letters.

The following examples might be helpful: