Author(s)

David Consolazio^1,2, David Benassi¹, Simone Sarti³, Marco Terraneo¹, Corrado Celata⁴, Antonio Giampiero Russo²

¹Department of Sociology and Social Research, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy.
²Epidemiology Unit, Agency for Health Protection of the Metropolitan City of Milan, Milan, Italy.
³Department of Social and Political Sciences, University of Milan, Milan, Italy.
⁴Specific Prevention Unit, Agency for Health Protection of the Metropolitan City of Milan, Milan, Italy.

This article presents the findings of a web survey aimed at collecting new neighborhood-level information on individual and contextual health-related risk factors in Milan, Italy. The study utilized the Social Determinants of Health and Urban Health approaches to design data-driven health prevention and promotion interventions tailored to the local community. However, the survey experienced a significantly low response rate (6.2%) with a skewed representation of middle-aged, well-educated, white-collar individuals located in affluent city areas. As a result, the collected data was deemed unusable for public health and research purposes. The article discusses the rationale, structure, and development of the project and evaluates the magnitude of non-response and non-response bias due to socioeconomic characteristics. The issues of low survey participation and socioeconomic inequalities in response rates are explored in connection with sociological theories and existing empirical evidence from the literature.

Survey Non-Response, Non-Response Bias, Web-Survey, Social Determinants of Health, Urban Health

Consolazio, D. , Benassi, D. , Sarti, S. , Terraneo, M. , Celata, C. and Russo, A. (2024) Analysis and Theoretical Exploration of Low Response Rate and Socioeconomic Bias in Survey Non-Response in Milan, Italy. Open Access Library Journal, 11, 1-18. doi: 10.4236/oalib.1111850.