Journal Entry 13

How possible would it be to do a survey of as many citizens in Wiamoase and the surrounding areas? I would first need to develop a hypothesis to test. Some ideas I have had so far are:

• Lower income households are more likely to have an infant die from malaria
• As distance from a health-care center increases, the likelihood of an infant dying from malaria increases
• Education level of a parent/caretaker correlates to the likelihood of an infant dying from malaria
• As the number of children in a household increases, the likelihood of an infant dying from malaria increases
• Households that use an insecticide treated bednet are less likely to have an infant die due to malaria

A lot of these hypothesis have probably been tested so I will need to investigate these thoroughly so I am not doing research that has already been done. I would need to develop a set of questions that I could ask when I go to interview households. I could include a number of questions that would allow me to test multiple hypothesis (for example I can ask questions about household income and number of children in the household in the same interview). I have quite a few questions about doing this type of research though:

1. How will I define terms such as household income when I am developing interview questions? I know assessing wealth is much different in Ghana than it is here.
2. How willing will participants be to answer questions like 'what is your education level' and 'what is your income'? How can I ask these questions without prying and offending?
3. If an infant dies from malaria, but was never diagnosed how can I determine that the death of the infant can be attributed to malaria? Can I ask specific questions about the symptoms of the illness that took the child's life and determine if it was most likely malaria?
4. Would it be better to ask the questions in a highly-structured interview setting or should I develop a questionnaire to take around with me that participants can fill out. Can most people in Wiamoase and the outlying areas read well enough to fill out a questionnaire? Would I be able to find a place to print out questionnaires when I am in Wiamoase?

Keywords: survey, hypothesis, objectively define variables