Ethics

Surveys

Regardless of whether work goes through a formal ethics process, ensuring we adhere to ethical best practice is essential.

Surveys often ask respondents to share personal or sensitive information about their health and experiences. We have a duty to ensure data is collected & used safely and responsibly.

In practice, this means making sure respondents understand what your survey is about, why you are doing it, how their data will be used, and that their involvement is their choice.

Each survey response represents an individual. Treat their time, information, and experiences with safety and respect in mind.

Key ethical principles in survey design and delivery

Confidentiality

  • Any information respondents provide should be kept confidential (i.e., information should be kept secure, private and not shared in a way that identifies them).

  • Access to the information respondents provide (e.g., who is able to see the data) should be limited to necessary colleagues or team members.

  • You should be transparent in your approach to confidentiality to help respondents better understand how their data will be protected.

Anonymity

  • Anonymity1 means that no identifying information is collected during your survey, and responses cannot be linked to a respondent.

  • Not all surveys can be anonymous (e.g., follow-up surveys, or where incentives are offered). Carefully consider whether your survey can be anonymous, or whether you need to collect personal information from respondents.

  • Respondents should always be made aware if their responses will be anonymous or not.

Data security

  • Your survey data must be collected, stored, and managed securely and in accordance with Camden’s data protection policies.

  • Consider where and how you will store survey responses securely and who will have access to the data.

Minimising harm

  • No respondents should suffer any form of harm as a result of taking part in your survey.

  • If you are asking questions about a sensitive topic, inform respondents at the start of your survey. Consider how sensitive questions are worded and give respondents the option to skip these questions.

  • Always signpost to resources (e.g., local support services) in case respondents require support after completing the survey.

  • You should additionally consider the harm to those analysing data and put in mitigations where appropriate.

Maximise benefit (beneficence)

  • Ensure you are collecting data for a clear purpose and avoid collecting data “just in case” or as a tick-box exercise. Only use them if the insights you collect will meaningfully contribute to benefits for respondents, communities or the wider public.  

  • Include a ‘why should I take part’ section in your information sheet or survey introduction which communicates the benefits of taking part.

It is important that these principles are maintained throughout the data lifecycle, not just at the point of data collection.

Safeguarding

Safeguarding in the context of survey design and delivery is about protecting respondents from harm and ensuring they can complete your survey safely.

Although most public health surveys carry limited risk, there may be occasions when you survey vulnerable groups of people, or respondents disclose something that raises concern about their safety or wellbeing (e.g., abuse, neglect, or self-harm).

In survey design and delivery, safeguarding risks usually fall into two areas:

Risk of causing respondents harm:

This relates to how completing a survey itself could negatively impact respondents or cause distress.

Example: Your survey topic is sensitive, and you ask your respondents to discuss a traumatic experience (e.g., a recent bereavement), or your survey uses stigmatising language that can trigger respondents.

Risk of harm being disclosed:

This relates to respondents sharing information which suggests they could be at risk of or experiencing harm.

Example: A young person completing a school wellbeing survey writes in an open text box that they are experiencing abuse at home. 

Best practice guidance

  • Before launching your survey, design and agree a clear safeguarding procedure with your team. Consider who to notify if a concern arises, what steps to take, and how to log concerns.

  • Make sure anyone distributing or analysing your survey understands safeguarding responsibilities and knows how to escalate concerns (e.g., to the team lead, or Designated Safeguarding Lead).

  • Use age-appropriate safeguarding processes. If your survey is being sent to children and young people, consider how you will obtain consent and ensure safeguarding leads (e.g., in schools) are involved, if appropriate.

  • Be clear about the limits of confidentiality. If your survey is not anonymous, ensure respondents understand that safeguarding concerns may have to be shared outside of you and your team.

  • Always provide resources and signpost to support. If your survey is about a sensitive topic, include links to online resources or access to local/national support services at the end of the survey.

Anonymous surveys and safeguarding

If your survey is anonymous (i.e. you are not collecting any personal information from your respondents which could identify them) this could impact on how you consider safeguarding.

  • Communicate your survey topic: Clearly state if your survey will include potentially upsetting questions or themes at the start of your survey. This will give respondents an opportunity to withdraw if they want to.

  • Clarity about anonymity: Ensure participants understand that if their responses are anonymous, you will not be able to provide any direct help.

  • Resources: Providing helpful resources and signposting available support ensures that respondents know where to go if completing your survey raises difficult feelings or experiences.

  • Partial anonymity: If appropriate for your survey, you might consider offering respondents the opportunity to optionally provide their contact details if they wish to be followed up with.

Incentives

Some surveys offer an incentive for respondents to take part, like a voucher or entry into a prize draw, to encourage people to take part or as an acknowledgement of their participation.

Incentives can be valuable for public health surveys, especially when recruiting groups who are seldom heard or often underrepresented in research.

However, incentives should always be fair and proportionate. Their aim is to show respondents that you value their time and effort, not to be used as a method of pressuring people to take part.

Key things to consider are:

  • Make sure your incentives are proportionate and reflect the time and effort involved in completing your survey. See NIHR’s payment guidance for key things to consider.

  • Choose incentives that are appropriate for your audience (e.g., a supermarket voucher might be more valuable for parents than professionals who may value things like certificates for CPD).

  • Distribute your incentives fairly. If respondents are entering a prize draw, be explicit about how & when winner(s) will be chosen.

Avoid incentives which might exclude certain groups (e.g., online-only vouchers will exclude those with limited digital access).

Further reading

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Footnotes

  1. Anonymous means you do not collect information that could identify respondents.

    Pseudonymised means respondents are assigned a unique code or identifier instead of being named. Responses can still potentially be linked back to individuals using separate information.

    Anonymised means identifying information has been removed so that responses cannot reasonably be linked back to an individual.↩︎