FluWiki Survey conducted Sunday March 26, 2006 through Tuesday March 28, 2006 Copyright 2006 by FluWiki
There were 123* usable surveys submitted in this non-random self-selected sample. Ninety six surveys (78%) came from residents of the USA with 36 states represented. The most frequently responding states were California (11) and Florida (10). The remainder of the respondents were from Australia, Austria, Canada (7), Estonia, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, New Zealand, and Scotland. The primary differences between respondents from countries other than the USA and the USA were in two areas. People from the USA had more of a tendency to own firearms and were less sure that Federal, State or Local governments would assist in some way. To maintain a large sample size data from the USA and from other countries were included in a single analysis.
The sample of respondents can be described as follows: The mean age is 45 years (range 18 – 65).Eighty two (67%) of the sample were female. The most frequently occurring occupations were in the administrative / management occupational categories with some students and homemakers. (n=8). In addition, there were 31 people whose occupations would be classified as senior executive, professional, health care professional, scientist or university professor. The median educational level was estimated (from degree and other accomplishments) as approximately 16 years (or college educated) with 35% of the respondents having some sort of education beyond the usual college four year degree. It can be concluded that this is a highly educated, socially successful group of respondents relative to the national population.
It was found that 66 people (54%) of the sample are suburban residents and that 45% (n=53) of the total sample commute to work on a routine basis.
Eighteen people (15% of the sample) are health care workers. In this small sample four of 18 said they will not go into work during a pandemic, nine of 18 do not know what they will do under these circumstances.
Eighty-three people (67%) in the sample are currently married with an additional 16 (13%) who cohabit. This group has from zero to seven dependents with a median of two dependents. Of those with school age children (n=63), 95% will not send their children to school during the initial stages of a pandemic, 89% (n=56) intend to home school, and 77% (n=49) will use the Internet or distance learning technology to educate their children during the initial stages of a pandemic.
The members of the sample who submitted information indicate that they have spent about 35 hours (median) on their preparations for a pandemic (range if from 0 – 2000 hours). In general they are about 67% completed with their preparations and have spent approximately (median) $950. Respondents anticipate their preparations will last about 12 weeks (median) for the estimated four (median) people who will be residing with them. Fully 97% of the respondents have the usual medications while 43 (35%) have a supply of Tamiflu. Sixty-eight percent (n= 82) respondents have a supply of “other” medications for a pandemic. It was found that 78% of the sample has masks and other gear appropriate for a pandemic.
With regard to preparations it was found that 37% of the respondents have (or believe they have) life insurance that cover in a pandemic. Forty-seven percent (n=57) have a Living Will. In addition, 60% (n=73) have a firearm. In the USA that would translate to approximately 75% of the respondents with some sort of firearm.
In the event of a pandemic about 74% of the sample will not continue as normal in their daily lives. Eighty-two percent will minimize trips out of the home, 72% (n=81) will use partial isolation and 50% (n=59) expect to use complete isolation in the initial phases of a pandemic. When asked about attending work during the early phases 16% (n=17) will go in as usual, 42% expect to (or would like to) telecommute, while 19% (n=20) will not go into work at all.
Approximately 88% (n=108) of the respondents will remain in place during the initial stages of a pandemic. Many of these people are first responders such as police and paramedics. Thirty-six percent of respondents (n=44) expect to help in the community in some manner.
Twenty-four (20%) of the respondents estimate that their community is working on preparations while 23% of the respondents think that their employers are working on preparations.
Respondents are 2.5% sure that the federal government will be able to assist in some ways during the initial stages of a pandemic. With regard to the State government, they are 8.5% sure and their opinion about the ability of local government to assist is 5.5%. Ranges for all of these opinions are from 0 to 100% and the medians are the best estimators in these cases. It is interesting to note that 53 (43%) of the respondents think that they had a survivalist mentality before the current pandemic threat. In this context it is also of interest to note that 45% (n=50) of those who responded are first-born children and it is reasonably well known that those born early in a family are more likely to be caretakers and more vigilant in many ways.
Thirty-one percent (n=37) think that identified clusters will signal a pandemic and roughly 30% will use the internet and FluWiki as their primary source to identify the beginning of a pandemic. There were many other potential sources identified as useful places to learn about a potential pandemic. Some of the ones most often cited were (in order of the largest number of referrals) NewsNow, Effect Measure, and Currevents.
People in this sample are on the Internet approximately four hours a day and they spend about 1.5 hours reading and commenting on FluWiki. About two times per week they comment on the FluWiki forum and make about the same number of additions to the Wiki itself. Thirty people (24%) consider FluWiki their primary site when logging onto the Internet
In general, 75% of the respondents find that their families are supportive of their attempts to prepare for a pandemic. However, only 30% of their friends are supportive. Eighty-six (70%) of the respondents keep their attempts at preparing confidential.
Respondents are 45% sure that a pandemic will occur in the next six months (range =0 to 100%). They are 72% sure that a pandemic will occur in the next year (with nearly dual modes at 50% and 75%).
Respondents were honest when reporting their self-descriptions and opinions. Ninety-one percent (n=112) stated that they were completely honest when responding. People who did not complete this item or those who said that their honesty in presentation was less than a “7” on a scale from 1 – 10 were excluded from the analysis.
The complete data analysis report has been filed on FluWiki as FluWikiSurveyReport - - -
bumped
The complete 26 page report with all the charts was generated with SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) and has a great deal of formatting. The summary shown above and the complete report were emailed to Demfromct to be “attached” for download in the Wiki proper. My apologies to those who could not find the report. It must have gotten lost in the move to a new structure.
I’ve received it and will get it up later today.
LOL! How’d you know? ricewiki was looking for this last night…and I couldn’t find it anywhere!
I saw her post from last night and figured it needed to be posted again when I could not find it.
Thanks ;-)
Bumped for ricewiki
got it — thanks BB
Thanks so much, Joe for this survey! Very informative… can’t wait to read the whole thing…. I like surveys, worked a bit in a market research firm myself, saw many surveys qual and quant, always thought I could do a better job in wording questions.
If you want any help in the future on any future survey, call me up!:)
Inever got to do the survey because didn’t flu wiki go down that last day? I wonder if any one had that happen?
Very, very, very well done Joe…thanks for investing your time in presenting these analyses.
Shad.
excellent analysis. pretty much fits me like a glove, even though I was too late in submitting. great job Joe!!!
Thanks for the comments. A few people have submitted surveys over the last day or so. There is no point in doing it now. I have destroyed the data set and there is no way I could analyze the data again. Sorry if you missed the survey the first time around, perhaps we will do something different at a later time.
I’m curious whether you received any feedback about what specific activity would “trigger” those who planned to stay home to actually start that process of cocooning. I have been telling lots of folks about fluwiki, and was recently asked what would trigger ME to start isolating. My response was when the public schools closed. Would be very interested in what others might use as their trigger point.
JoeW,
That’s an excellent question.
As I recall there were no questions about “trigger” points. The original survey can be reviewed on the links given by DemFromCt at 21:55 above.
Closed to maintain Forum speed.