Women's Health Australia: Recruitment for a National Longitudinal Cohort Study

TLDR

WHA is a longitudinal study of Australian women that examines how biological, psychological, social, and lifestyle factors influence physical health, emotional well‑being, and health‑care use. The study aims to recruit and follow three age‑group cohorts of women to investigate longitudinal associations between life factors and health outcomes. Recruitment used Medicare as a sampling frame, inviting 106,000 women across three age groups with a 24‑page questionnaire and multiple reminders, including telephone completion options, but no telephone follow‑up of non‑respondents. Response rates were 41%, 54%, and 36% for the 18–23, 45–50, and 70–75 age groups, producing samples largely representative of Australian women, with main non‑participation reasons being lack of interest or time, personal circumstances, questionnaire objections, and confidentiality concerns.

Abstract

SUMMARY The Women's Health Australia (WHA) project is a longitudinal study of several cohorts of Australian women, which aims to examine the relationships between biological, psychological, social and lifestyle factors and women's physical health, emotional well-being, and their use of and satisfaction with health care. Using the Medicare database as a sampling frame (with oversampling of women from rural and remote areas), 106,000 women in the three age groups 18–23, 45–50 and 70–75 were sent an invitation to participate and a 24-page self-complete questionnaire. Reminder letters, a nation-wide publicity campaign, information brochures, a freecall number for inquiries, and the option of completing the questionnaire by telephone in English or in the respondent's own language, were used to encourage participation. Statutory regulations precluded telephone follow-up of non-respondents. Response rates were 41% (N = 14,792), 54% (N = 14,200) and 36% (N = 12,614) for the three age groups. Comparison with Australian census data indicated that the samples are reasonably representative of Australian women in these age groups, except for a somewhat higher representation of women who are married or in a defacto relationship, and of women with post-school education. The most common reason for non-participation was lack of interest or time. Personal circumstances, objections to the questionnaire or specific items in it, and concerns about confidentiality were the other main reasons. Recruitment of three representative age-group cohorts of women, and the maintenance of these cohorts over a number of years, will provide a valuable opportunity to examine associations over time between aspects of women's lives and their physical and emotional health and well-being.