dept of health survey under 3s

[Groggymama]

a cold caller came yesterday to ask me to take part in this today, I saw his id and the police had stamped his paperwork but I still feel it was odd, (but I hate cold callers) has anyone else heard of it? (in W Yorks btw)

Hmmm it does sound a bit odd. I would perhaps ring the local police or healthe centre and ask if they know anything about it.

Defintely ring up and check.

I don't want to worry you, but this sort of thing has been a tactic used by people who want to get access to children. Please call the police to check this out, and your doctor's surgery. If Dept Health were doing some research with under-3s they would do it via doctors or HVs, I'm pretty sure.

I agree with Edam. This kind of thing is usually done via HVs or health centres rather than approaching parents via cold-calling. Definitely check it out first.

i have to agree with everyone else. sounds strange to me.

He came back this morning to conduct the survey and I told him I wasn't doing it because of the cold calling yesterday, he left a standard letter with me which mentions BMRB International. thanks for your advice.

just googled the names and it turns out its the immunisation parent survey, they are cold calling in order to get out of the beauracracy of applying for ethical committee approval, I quote "The respondents are randomly generated (postcodes are generated by a computer and the interviewer walks from door to door to find primary care givers of 0 to 2s)... Finally, as the interview is conducted in the respondent?s own home, we make no use of NHS premises or facilities. Consequently ethical approval from an MREC is not required. For the same reasons we do not need to register under the Research Governance Framework Act " - that's disgusting because the requirement to register with COREC is there to protect the vulnerable.

As someone who needs COREC approval to do research i would not touch this guys study with a ten foot barge pole. to be able to publish this data they would need ethical approval, so whats the point in a study which doesn't have it?