View article

This article describes obstacles encountered and strategies devised in planning and conducting a national telephone health survey (n = 459) of an insular, deeply traditional religious population, haredi (ultra-Orthodox Jewish) Israeli women. The paper discusses how special characteristics of this population influenced study design, sampling, data collection, and interpretation. Sampling employed polling data to identify haredi concentrations. Despite haredim's reputation for low survey participation, we achieved a 71–74% response rate (depending on the unknown eligibility of 24 phones never answered) in interviews conducted in 2003–2004. We describe our systematic attention to special aspects of haredi culture such as: modesty and speech codes; the need for rabbinic endorsement; and the importance of female, haredi interviewers. This research was initiated and managed by a community-based …