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This article investigates how mail-based online panel recruitment can be facilitated through incentives. The analysis relies on two incentive experiments and their effects on panel recruitment, and the intermediate participation in the recruitment survey. The experiments were implemented in the context of the German Emigration and Remigration Panel Study and encompass two samples of randomly sampled persons. Tested incentives include a conditional lottery, conditional monetary incentives, and the combination of unconditional money-in-hand with conditional monetary incentives. For an encompassing evaluation of the link between incentives and panel recruitment, the article further assesses the incentives’ implications for demographic composition and panel recruitment unit costs. Multivariate analysis indicates that low combined incentives (€5/€5) or, where unconditional disbursement is unfeasible, high conditional incentives (€20) are most effective in enhancing panel participation. In terms of demographic bias, low combined incentives (€5/€5) and €10 conditional incentives are the favored options. The budget options from the perspective of panel recruitment include the lottery and the €10 conditional incentive which break-even at net sample sizes of 1000.

ZusammenfassungSeit 2014 ist die Zahl der Neuerkrankungen an Tuberkulose (TB) in Deutschland um rund 20% angestiegen. Diese Entwicklung fällt mit einer hohen Zuwanderung von Asylsuchenden zusammen, die z. T. aus Ländern stammen, in denen die TB deutlich weiter verbreitet ist als hierzulande. Vor diesem Hintergrund setzt sich der vorliegende Beitrag zum Ziel, Hemmnisse bei der Diagnose und der Therapie asylsuchender TB-Patienten in Deutschland zu identifizieren und zu erklären. Zugleich sollen Verbesserungspotenziale in diesen Bereichen aufgezeigt werden. Als Datengrundlage dienen 14 leitfadengestützte, problemzentrierte Interviews mit Ärzten und Bediensteten des öffentlichen Gesundheitswesens, die als Experten die Versorgerseite repräsentieren. Auf der einen Seite bringen strukturelle Faktoren die von den Experten benannten Hemmnisse hervor. So führt bspw. der eingeschränkte Zugang zur Gesundheitsversorgung zu einer verspäteten Diagnose, da Asylsuchende hierdurch später (oder gar nicht) zum Arzt gehen. Entsprechend wird eine flächendeckende Einführung einer elektronischen Gesundheitskarte vorgeschlagen. Auf der anderen Seite spielen individuelle bzw. kulturelle Faktoren eine wichtige Rolle. Hierzu zählen z. B. Sprachbarrieren, welche die Anamnese (und damit die Diagnose), v. a. aber die Aufklärung des Patienten erschweren und damit den Therapieerfolg gefährden. Zudem resultiert aus der fehlenden Vertrautheit von Asylsuchenden mit dem deutschen Gesundheitssystem die Gefahr einer Therapieunterbrechung. Schulungsprogramme nach dem „train the trainer“-Konzept und die Etablierung eines „Lotsen“, der asylsuchende TB-Patienten durch das deutsche Gesundheitssystem navigiert, könnten diese Probleme lindern.

As our modern world has become increasingly digitalized, various types of data from different data domains are available that can enrich survey data. To link survey data to other sources, consent from the survey respondents is required. This article compares consent to data linkage requests for seven data domains: administrative data, smartphone usage data, bank data, biomarkers, Facebook data, health insurance data, and sensor data. We experimentally explore three factors of interest to survey designers seeking to maximize consent rates: consent question order, consent question wording, and incentives. The results of the study using a German online sample (n = 3,374) show that survey respondents have a relatively high probability of consent to share smartphone usage data, Facebook data, and biomarkers, while they are least likely to share their bank data in a survey. Of the three experimental factors, only the consent question order affected consent rates significantly. Additionally, the study investigated the interactions between the three experimental manipulations and the seven data domains, of which only the interaction between the data domains and the consent question order showed a consistent significant effect.

Despite the fact that third parties are present during a substantial amount of face-to-face interviews, bystander influence on respondents’ response behavior is not yet fully understood. We use nine waves of the German Family Panel pairfam and apply fixed effects panel regression models to analyze effects of third-party presence on items regarding the sharing of household tasks between partners. We find that both male and female respondents report doing a smaller share of household tasks when their partner is present during the interview as compared to when their partner is not present. Similarly, if the respondent’s partner is present, both partners’ reports correspond more, so that they are less prone to resulting in unrealistically high sums. These results indicate that for items concerning household labor, partner presence does not compromise data quality but may in fact improve it.

Since 2014, the number of new cases of tuberculosis (TB) has risen in Germany by about 20%. This coincides with a large number of people applying for asylum in Germany. Some of them are from countries in which TB is much more prevalent than in Germany. The objectives of this contribution are to identify and explain barriers in the diagnosis and treatment of asylum seekers with TB and potential improvements in those fields. Data are derived from 14 problem-centred interviews that were carried out with doctors and staff from public health offices, representing the views of experts in the field of health care. On the one hand, the results suggest that structural factors are responsible for some of the barriers mentioned by the experts. For example, the restricted access to health care for asylum seekers leads to a delayed diagnosis since they visit the doctor too late (if at all). Accordingly, a nationwide implementation of an electronic health card for asylum seekers was proposed. On the other hand, individual and cultural factors play important roles as well. To those belong language barriers: they not only complicate history taking and diagnosis, but also educating patients about their disease and therapy. Moreover, the lack of knowledge concerning the German health care system increases the risk of treatment interruptions. To alleviate those problems, experts propose to carry out train-the-trainer-programmes and to install "guides" who pilot asylum seekers with TB through the German health care system.Seit 2014 ist die Zahl der Neuerkrankungen an Tuberkulose (TB) in Deutschland um rund 20% angestiegen. Diese Entwicklung fällt mit einer hohen Zuwanderung von Asylsuchenden zusammen, die z. T. aus Ländern stammen, in denen die TB deutlich weiter verbreitet ist als hierzulande. Vor diesem Hintergrund setzt sich der vorliegende Beitrag zum Ziel, Hemmnisse bei der Diagnose und der Therapie asylsuchender TB-Patienten in Deutschland zu identifizieren und zu erklären. Zugleich sollen Verbesserungspotenziale in diesen Bereichen aufgezeigt werden. Als Datengrundlage dienen 14 leitfadengestützte, problemzentrierte Interviews mit Ärzten und Bediensteten des öffentlichen Gesundheitswesens, die als Experten die Versorgerseite repräsentieren. Auf der einen Seite bringen strukturelle Faktoren die von den Experten benannten Hemmnisse hervor. So führt bspw. der eingeschränkte Zugang zur Gesundheitsversorgung zu einer verspäteten Diagnose, da Asylsuchende hierdurch später (oder gar nicht) zum Arzt gehen. Entsprechend wird eine flächendeckende Einführung einer elektronischen Gesundheitskarte vorgeschlagen. Auf der anderen Seite spielen individuelle bzw. kulturelle Faktoren eine wichtige Rolle. Hierzu zählen z. B. Sprachbarrieren, welche die Anamnese (und damit die Diagnose), v. a. aber die Aufklärung des Patienten erschweren und damit den Therapieerfolg gefährden. Zudem resultiert aus der fehlenden Vertrautheit von Asylsuchenden mit dem deutschen Gesundheitssystem die Gefahr einer Therapieunterbrechung. Schulungsprogramme nach dem „train the trainer“-Konzept und die Etablierung eines „Lotsen“, der asylsuchende TB-Patienten durch das deutsche Gesundheitssystem navigiert, könnten diese Probleme lindern.

To achieve high return among secondary respondents, primary respondents’ consent rates must be high. In the German Family Panel (pairfam), a large, randomly sampled panel study, primary respondents’ consent rates to surveying their parents were found to be low. Since we suspected that the underlying reason could be interviewer behavior, we tested in an experiment if placing the consent questions in the self-interview (CASI) part of the interview would increase consent rates. Results show that bypassing interviewers by asking respondents directly in the CASI section did not increase consent rates.

Given the nature of leisure as largely uncoerced and not necessary for survival it seems obvious at a first glance that leisure activities should contribute to happiness. Indeed, recent research has found positive effects of leisure activities on subjective well-being. In this article, we analyze the association between leisure activities and life satisfaction based on longitudinal data from Germany. By applying fixed-effects regression models we are able to rule out potential bias due to unobserved heterogeneity in time-constant variables. We use data from three waves of the German Family Panel (pairfam), a large, randomly sampled longitudinal study of adolescents and adults (aged 15–41 across the observation period), to test the effects of five leisure activities (sports; vacation; meeting with friends; internet use; and TV viewing) on respondents’ life satisfaction. Our results indicate that meeting with friends, doing sports, and going on vacation contributes positively to life satisfaction whereas internet use for personal purposes and TV consumption are negatively related to life satisfaction.

The mosquito species Anopheles plumbeus is an aggressive biter and a potential vector of malaria parasites and West Nile virus. It occurs naturally at low population densities, as its larval development is adapted to the specific water qualities found in tree holes. However, probably owing to environmental changes, it has recently been observed in several European countries to use increasingly often artificial breeding habitats that may lead to mass development and severe annoyance to humans living close by. The perception of mosquito nuisance, however, is very subjective, and breeding habitats are not always known, thus impeding targeted surveillance and control. To relate nuisance by An. plumbeus to specific environmental conditions, a questionnaire survey was carried out addressing persons who had submitted specimens of this particular mosquito species to the German citizen science project "Mueckenatlas", an instrument of passive mosquito surveillance. The questionnaire was intended to find out whether a nuisance situation linked to An. plumbeus had existed, whether mosquito breeding habitats could be identified and whether control measures had been conducted. Despite some efforts, the participants who claimed to suffer from an An. plumbeus nuisance problem had rarely identified the source of the mosquitoes. Once control measures had been performed on abandoned manure pits, however, the nuisance problem disappeared or mosquito abundance was at least significantly reduced. Nevertheless, no significant effect of abandoned manure pits on the probability of an An. plumbeus nuisance could be demonstrated in a multivariate logistic regression model testing various variables. Instead, a significant positive effect of a disused farm nearby was found. The reason is probably that manure pits as the most frequent source of An. plumbeus mass development are often located on disused farms, without most people's knowledge about their existence. Disused farms are therefore appropriate candidates to consider when it comes to public health issues connected to An. plumbeus such as surveillance of mass development and implementation of control measures.

Research into the changes in the frequency of sexual intercourse is (with few exceptions) limited to cross-sectional analyses of marital duration. We investigate the frequency of intercourse while taking into account relationship duration as well as the duration of cohabitation and marriage, effects of parenthood, and relationship quality. For the analysis we apply fixed effects regression models using data from the German Family Panel (pairfam), a nationwide randomly sampled German panel survey. Our findings imply that the drop in sex frequency occurs early in the relationship, whereas neither cohabitation nor marriage affects the frequency of intercourse to a significant extent. Sex frequency is reduced during pregnancy and as long as the couple has small children, but becomes revived later on. Relationship quality is found to play a role as well. These results are contrary to the honeymoon effect found in earlier research, but indicate that in times of postponed marriage an analogous effect may be at work in the initial period of the relationship.

Since the beginning of the nineties, a number of studies indicate that weather conditions at interview day can have an effect on measurement, in particular regarding life satisfaction. In their seminal paper, Schwarz and Clore (J Pers Soc Psychol 45(3):513–523, 1983) show higher reported life satisfaction for sunny days, a finding which is replicated recently by Kampfer and Mutz (Soc Indic Res 110(2):579–595, 2013). However, both studies are based on relatively small samples (from a few dozen up to 200 cases). We use data of the German Family Panel (pairfam) and local weather data for every respondent to investigate if weather effects on satisfaction measurement can be replicated with a large sample (about 7,000 respondents). In addition to cross-sectional analyses in which we follow closely the approach of Kampfer and Mutz, we estimate fixed effects regressions to model the effect of weather on individual changes in satisfaction over time. We do neither find an effect of nice weather on the day of the interview on the respondents’ ratings of general life satisfaction nor a consistent effect on any of the other satisfaction measures. These results show that at least with simple weather measures as they have been used as yet a relationship between weather conditions at interview day and answering behavior regarding life satisfaction cannot be found.

Zusammenfassung Der Beitrag untersucht mit den Daten des Familiensurveys 2000, ob die Erwerbstätigkeit von Frauen in Westdeutschland einen kausalen Effekt auf den Übergang in die Mutterschaft hat. Es zeigt sich zunächst, dass erwerbstätige Frauen eine geringere Übergangsrate zur ersten Geburt haben als nicht erwerbstätige Frauen. Theoretische Überlegungen lassen es jedoch fraglich erscheinen, ob der Effekt tatsächlich kausal ist - ob also die Erwerbstätigkeit die Ursache für die geringere Übergangsrate erwerbstätiger Frauen ist. Vielmehr gibt es plausible Argumente dafür, dass der Zusammenhang auf Selbstselektion in Erwerbstätigkeit und Nichterwerbstätigkeit zurückzuführen ist, bzw. darauf, dass die Fertilitätsabsicht die Erwerbsbeteiligung bestimmt. Um die Kausalität des Effekts zu überprüfen, werden zwei indirekte Kausalitätstests durchgeführt. Diese liefern starke Hinweise darauf, dass der Effekt nicht oder zumindest nur teilweise kausal ist.

Despite a large body of empirical literature on sexual satisfaction, its development over the course of a relationship is still unclear. Only a small number of studies, most of which have relied on cross-sectional data of convenience samples, have explicitly focused on relationship duration, and empirical evidence is mixed. We analyzed how sexual satisfaction changes over the course of a relationship using three waves of the German Family Panel study (pairfam). We concentrated our analyses on young and middle-aged heterosexual individuals in committed relationships (N = 2,814) and applied fixed effects regression models, which have the advantage of estimations based on changes within individuals over time. We found a positive development of sexual satisfaction in the first year of a relationship, followed by a steady decline. This pattern persisted even when controlling for the frequency of intercourse, although the effects were, in part, mediated by intercourse frequency. We explained the non-linear effect of relationship duration on sexual satisfaction with an initial learning effect regarding partner-specific sexual skills, which is then outweighed by a decline in passion at later stages of a relationship. Moreover, we found significant effects for the control variables of health status, intimacy in couple communication, and conflict style, as expected. In contrast to past research, however, cohabitation and marriage were not found to play a role for sexual satisfaction in our data. Further research is required to deepen the understanding of the reasons why sexual satisfaction changes with relationship duration.