Feasibility of a telephone survey to study a minority community: Hispanics in San Francisco

In two random digit dialing surveys conducted among Hispanics using a modified Mitofsky-Waksberg procedure, we found low refusal rates (4.7% and 3.1%), low assumed noncontact rate (14.0% and 18.3%), and high response rates (88.6% and 88.4%) with limited investment in time (1.58 hours and 1.66 hours per completed interview). These results suggest that Hispanics are willing to participate in telephone surveys and that this method may be feasible and useful for research and evaluation purposes.