Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 24, 2025

Swabbing the Urban Environment - A Pipeline for Sampling and Detection of SARS-CoV-2 From Environmental Reservoirs
Published on: April 9, 2021
Did people really drink bleach to prevent COVID-19? A guide for protecting survey data against problematic
Leib Litman1,2, Zohn Rosen3, Rachel Hartman1,4
1CloudResearch, New York, New York, United States of America.
Abstract:
Survey respondents who are non-attentive, respond randomly, or misrepresent who they are can impact the outcomes of surveys. Prior findings reported by the CDC have suggested that people engaged in highly dangerous cleaning practices during the COVID-19 pandemic, including ingesting household cleaners such as bleach. In our attempts to replicate the CDC's results, we found that 100% of reported ingestion of household cleaners are made by problematic respondents. Once inattentive, acquiescent, and careless respondents are removed from the sample, we find no evidence that people ingested cleaning products to prevent a COVID-19 infection. These findings have important implications for public health and medical survey research, as well as for best practices for avoiding problematic respondents in all survey research conducted online.
More Related Videos
Related Concept Videos
Survey Safety
Surveys
Censoring Survival Data
Standard Precaution
Hand hygiene is the most crucial means to prevent the transmission of disease. Employers are legally required to provide their workers with personal protective equipment (PPE) to minimize exposure or contact with...
Transmission-based Precautions I: Contact, Enteric, and Droplets
Contact Precautions:
Contact precautions are the measures taken to prevent the transmission of infectious agents, especially epidemiologically important microorganisms such as MRSA or influenza, primarily transmitted through direct or indirect contact with an...
Data Collection by Survey

