Issues in health promotion survey research: The example of anabolic steroid use at the high school level.

Abstract

This thesis begins by describing a partially successful survey to study anabolic steroid use by high school students that was intended to address some of the gaps in knowledge regarding those drugs in the adolescent population. Three major themes were judged critical to the success of health promotion survey research: (1) the community being surveyed must consider the topic of sufficient importance to have an interest in participating in the research, (2) the design of the study and any data collection instrument must meet a set of guiding criteria: be applicable and acceptable to the study population, be feasible within the constraints of the community, produce good quality data and be of reasonable cost, and finally, (3) a method to ensure age appropriate consent that does not compromise data duality should be available for use. These themes are developed using the steroid survey as a case study. The public response to the topic is examined, the burden of ill health that may be caused by steroids is explored and the literature on the prevalence of use among adolescents is summarized. Finally, the ethics of consent requirements in survey research, with an emphasis on research involving children, are explored. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)