Health Survey 2019-2020 is Live
The RPCV Health Crusade’s Health Survey 2019-2020 is now open! But why did we create it? Some in the RPCV community, and beyond, feel that there is room for improvement for the health needs of serving PCVs. But more importantly, that there is very little in place to support the health and well-being of RPCVs after service. And, any focus on health could and should include prevention, maintenance, and overall wellness and not just on being ill. But, how can we really help make a difference? Where do we start?
Why Did We Create the Health Survey 2019-2020?
As PCVs and RPCVs, we cross borders and boundaries to help our global neighbors in need and asked for very little in return. But, what options currently exists to respond to the health needs of our own unique community of individuals? In the typical spirit that drew us to PC service, several of us came together and rolled up our sleeves to see how we can help each other!
The Health Survey 2019-2020 was our first step to help us:
- give the community of PCVs and RPCVs a voice in identifying our own health needs;
- get better visibility in health trends and patterns within the community;
- build a more complete picture of the overall health of this community;
- receive your guidance in focusing our efforts (education, advocacy, support, etc.) and developing programs that generates the greatest benefit;
- and establish a baseline of the current state of our community to track potential changes over time (hopefully in a positive direction).
What are the Rules?
If you served more than once or had a change of service, then submit a separate survey for each since experiences and responses may be different. Try to complete the survey in one session – it only takes about 10-20 minutes. Just use the buttons on the survey to navigate and not the browser. Also, accept those pesky cookies and enable javascript to ensure survey access. Be honest with the responses – there is no judgement here. And, it is okay if you don’t remember everything. Try not to launch multiple survey instances to experiment which could skew our results. If you start it, please finish it.
Some of the questions are answered from your own perspective (how you approach the topic and whether or not you are interested). But then, some questions helps us better understand how Peace Corps or other entities are approaching the topic. It can’t always be just about you!
That’s about it for the do’s and don’ts.
Which Questions Should Be Included?
The concept of health is so vast! A comprehensive survey easily includes thousands of questions. But, that survey needs hours to complete. This community is willing to devote 2-3 years of their lives to help others overseas but would they spend more than an hour to complete a survey to help each other? Should we break it out into a few dozen surveys and hope that people will complete more than one? Would people complete one survey a month for the next year?
We had to find a balance. So, we decided on one survey with enough questions in certain topics for adequate visibility into the community’s needs and give us a good start on our efforts. So yes, we left out some topics that could be important to some. And yes again, we did not go very deep on some topics. In the end, we made the hard decisions and (hopefully) found a good balance.
And even though some questions did not make this survey, no one ever said that we could not create additional surveys to go deeper or focus on different topic areas in the future. Therefore, we encourage everyone to submit potential topics and specific questions that could help identify the health trends and needs of this unique community.
What Will We Do With the Health Survey 2019-2020 Results?
The survey results helps us better understand the health trends and patterns within this unique community. Are we more risk-adverse in certain health areas? Are there clear positive or negative patterns within a specific topic?
Also, the results shapes our efforts and programs to correspond to areas of opportunities:
- to tackle on our own within our RPCV community;
- to work with PC to update; and
- where to push Congress for legislative guidance.
And, if we repeat this survey in the future, your responses reflects any significant changes or improvement. Hopefully, there is no decline in the overall health of the RPCV community over time but there has been nothing to date to track this. But now, we have a baseline for any future survey to measure against!
And yes, we plan to post the anonymized results after the survey window ends so sign up for our newsletter and check back for updates.
Will Your Responses Be Kept Private?
Your privacy is extremely important to us. We want everyone to feel comfortable to answer as honestly as possible and to know that their responses are safe with us.
The actual survey data will not be shared or sold to any other group or organization including NPCA or PC. Also, access to the data within the group is restricted to only those with a specific approved need for that access.
The survey does not collect any personal identifiable information. However, we cannot stop you from providing identifiable or private information in any open text entry options. Even then, we will still do our best to limit displaying any personal information submitted even though that could mean a lot more manual work for us. And, the summary of results will be posted after they are anonymized and randomized. How’s that for diligence?
And, we implemented certain technology security measures to further protect your survey responses but we can’t spill the beans here. And, we did not even need a Lieutenant General to tell us that!
How Can You Help?
First of all, take the survey!
Then, spread the word near and far to reach as many PCVs and RPCVs as possible so to get a more complete picture of the community’s health needs and trends.
Sign up for the newsletter to stay in touch and get updates on our progress. The larger our support base, the stronger our collective voice becomes.
And, how about lending a hand and volunteer with us? We are just getting started so there is a lot to do to truly make a difference. We are an all-volunteer group so things do not move as quickly as we would like with the limited hands that we currently have. There is so much potential to do something amazing for this RPCV community.
There are lots of ways you can contribute to the group and our efforts. We can do more and get further together. This is your opportunity to contribute to the solution!