Latest research asks: Who are active divers?

[Saniflush]

No survey for me. I haven't had a landline since 1999.

 

[Peter Buzzacott]

My apologies, I thought I replied a couple of days ago, (maybe I didn't hit the "post" button).
My thanks to all for the thoughtful comments and questions. Let me clarify a few issues.

First, the survey has 300 questions but they are grouped into modules. So if, for example, the question asks "Have you had a heart attack" or "have you ever smoked" and you answer "no", then you won't be asked the questions like "how many packets per week?" etc. From memory, out of the 300 questions around 50 core questions were frequently answered by divers. Not all divers answered all 50, but a high proportion of divers on average.

Regards the definition of "active", this definition is up to the individual, there is no "gold standard". Probably the majority of research has accepted the definition of "active' as anyone who has dived within the previous year. Before anyone disagrees with this, what I mean is that the majority of diving research that I have read uses this definition. It is not my definition so please don't think that is my opinion as well. We did not get to choose our own definition in this study. The CDC asked if anyone had been active during the last month and, for people who say "yes", they ask "Which of the following activities were you MOST active at?" The people who said they were active, and most active at scuba, were included in our study.

Also, the comment about people not diving all year round but still being active was pretty insightful. The survey is conducted in all states, all rear round, and we checked the monthly distribution and it was pretty uniform through the year. If the survey was conducted in only one month then the results would depend heavily on whether it was done in January or July. But, because it was steady through the year, I believe this research paints a balanced picture of our most active divers.

Lastly, and I do not mean to be defensive here because I really do enjoy it when divers are interested in research and question it carefully, I will acknowledge that this research is not perfect and there are some serious limitations with it. For example, the winter divers might be outliers and the summer divers might be holiday divers who just got back from their one diving holiday per year. But, overall, I do think this is the best snapshot of active US divers we've ever had.

By all means, please feel free to share this link on your social media: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2047487318790290

Now, on to the next project...

 

[kelemvor]

Recreational scuba divers are not that well described. The challenge researchers face is finding a representative sample. For example, if we conduct a survey of ScubaBoard members then that might be biased towards one segment of our community, but ignore others. Same if we survey dive club members, or insured divers, or newly certified divers... Over the years, if you take all these types of studies into account, we might generally paint a picture of who we are. But, to obtain a proper snapshot we would need to randomly sample people and ask "Are you a diver?". To do this in a small village might be affordable, but to get a nationally representative sample would cost millions of dollars. And,... that is just what the CDC have done.

The CDC coordinate a year-round random telephone-based survey in every US state and, in three of the last six years, in addition to the nearly 300 questions they've asked about people's lives, they have also asked if people were active in the previous month. If so, were they most active at scuba diving? So, for what may be the first large scale random sample survey of active US scuba divers, anyone interested can download the short, two-page paper here: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2047487318790290

I don't know about the rest of you, but I see more than a passing resemblance to me in these results.

It's a good attempt but I see a telephone survey as being just as limiting as other data sources you fault as too limited. Personally, if I got a call from someone claiming to be with the CDC I'd probably chuckle before hanging up. I doubt they'd get far enough to try and pitch a survey. I think lots of folks like myself have grown weary of constant spam telephone calls and don't tolerate much. I doubt I would believe it really was the CDC. CallerID has pretty much fallen apart and can't be relied upon, so we're left with no way to verify. If they somehow get past folks initial reaction, then they've got to get lucky enough to have found someone who would tolerate a detailed and lengthy survey.

I don't believe this is useless, but as I said I do believe the data is going to lack accurate representation as much as any of your other identified sources.

Also, as others have indicated, many divers do one dive trip a year. That's not me, but I think those folks should be counted as active. Not everyone gets to live in Florida like I do where the only consideration is having a couple hundred bucks for a two tanker.

 

[boulderjohn]

The people who said they were active, and most active at scuba, were included in our study.

So if I lived in Florida and averaged roughly 4 days of diving a month (50 days and 100 dives per year), but played golf or tennis more than 4 times a month, I would not have been included as an active diver in the survey. Is that correct?

 

[TMHeimer]

No survey for me. I haven't had a landline since 1999.

We dumped the land line a couple of years ago. Seems the survey guys more & more have discovered our 2 cell phones. Just got one today.

 

[Peter Buzzacott]

So if I lived in Florida and averaged roughly 4 days of diving a month (50 days and 100 dives per year), but played golf or tennis more than 4 times a month, I would not have been included as an active diver in the survey. Is that correct?

Not quite...
As it states in the paper, all the people who said they were active were asked what activity they were most active at. Then, a further question asked "What other type of physical activity gave you the next most exercise during the past month?" So, if diving and golf were the two activities you were most active at in the month before taking the survey, then you would have been eligible to be in our analysis of active divers.

Regarding the other points made concerning people's willingness to answer telephone surveys... while an argument can be made that 100% participation would be ideal, non-participation is counted and whatever information can be gathered for non-participants, (for example, people who answer a handful of questions then hang up, location where the phone is registered, etc), is used to investigate if non-participants differ to participants. Then, once the data are collected, each respondent is given a weighting based on seven variables, to estimate how closely each person reflects the section of the US population that have the same seven variables. So, for a simple example, if you hang-up the phone but someone else in the same state, same age, sex, economic status, same education, etc answers all the questions, well they're basically answering the questions for you. I know, I know, that's not perfect, but as long as divers are equally likely to participate or not participate as anyone else with the same seven variables, there shouldn't be a bias. The theory being, for every diver who hangs up, there is an equal chance that a golfer will hang up and a diver will take his/her place. In the end, through random sampling, a representative sample is obtained.

 

[Saniflush]

We dumped the land line a couple of years ago. Seems the survey guys more & more have discovered our 2 cell phones. Just got one today.

Mrs Flush and I seem to go through bouts of calls on our cell. We'll go a couple of months getting calls then blocking the number then there will be six that we don't get any. Luckily we are both at a point in our life that we pretty well know every call that is coming in.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Being on the other side of the barricade (meaning, being a scientist), I know how much frustrating can be not getting any pivotal informations just because people are too lazy/busy/scared to answer the phone.
And this applies to so many aspect of public health, not only for diving purposes, including cancer surveys and other diseases...

Don’t blame the people who don’t/won’t answer the phone, blame the infestation of telemarketers and phone scammers that ruined peoples’ trust.

 

[Akimbo]

Being on the other side of the barricade (meaning, being a scientist), I know how much frustrating can be not getting any pivotal informations just because people are too lazy/busy/scared to answer the phone.
And this applies to so many aspect of public health, not only for diving purposes, including cancer surveys and other diseases...

Don’t blame the people who don’t/won’t answer the phone, blame the infestation of telemarketers and phone scammers that ruined peoples’ trust.

Eric brings up a very good point that you alluded to. I believe that the telephone is no longer a viable method for polling, surveys, or customer feedback. In fact, the entire feedback loop has to be rethought. I get phone calls, E-mail, and junk mail asking for feedback on the most frivolous crap that increasingly gets all of them ignored -- especially during election season.

 

[Bob DBF]

I have also ditched my home phone, and no longer interact with people I don't know on the phone because it is a tremendous waste of time. I did participate in phone surveys untill they they were more interested in getting a particular response than my answer.

I do participate in the online surveys that come up on ScubaBoard. I will still quit a survey if it is poorly made or steers to a particular conclusion.

I do feel bad for legitimate researchers, however there are so many abuses of the phone that the baby goes out with the bathwater.



Bob