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Study of return rate and return time of undeliverable postal letters

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Abstract

Postal questionnaires are widely used to collect data in health research and epidemiologic studies. One problem related to mail surveys is the availability of an up-to-date and accurate list of people in the population from which to draw the sample for the survey. For the identification of incorrect postal addresses it is important that all incorrectly addressed mails are returned as undeliverable. This study examines the proportion of unreturned postal letters that were sent to incorrect addresses. We sent 339 letters to existing addresses throughout Germany, but used fictional names name of persons. Three hundred and three letters (98.2%) were returned as undeliverable. The return rates only slightly differed by layout of the envelopes, region and deliverer.

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Abbreviations

mm:

Millimeter

SE:

Standard error

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No conflicting relationship exists for any author.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Clinical Epidemiology, Medical Faculty, University of Halle-Wittenberg, Magdeburgerstr. 8, 06097, Halle, Germany

    Andrea Schmidt-Pokrzywniak & Andreas Stang

Authors
  1. Andrea Schmidt-Pokrzywniak
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  2. Andreas Stang
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Correspondence to Andrea Schmidt-Pokrzywniak.

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Schmidt-Pokrzywniak, A., Stang, A. Study of return rate and return time of undeliverable postal letters. Eur J Epidemiol 25, 467–470 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10654-010-9463-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10654-010-9463-3

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