Showcase Project

What Is Longitudinal Follow Up?

Longitudinal follow up is a research design in which participants are followed over a set interval of time. The process can entail continuous or repeated monitoring using tools, surveys, interviews, or repeated exposure to experimental situations. The result is each participant has multiple data points from different time periods.

The major benefit of longitudinal follow up is the temporal or time aspect of the method. Longitudinal follow up allows for change over time to be tracked. This is done by comparing the data at each time point to form a sequence to track how the data has changed. This can also be applied to other time-based measures, such as development and maturation.

Longitudinal follow up can be used to measure things like:

Changes in variables over time
Changes during human development
Patterns in rapidly changing variables
Effects of substances over time
Estimated population trends
Behavioral changes
And many more

Longitudinal Follow Up Infographic

Longitudinal Follow Up at the Hulvershorn Lab

The Hulvershorn lab follows participants for 54 months to track endorsement of and engagement in substance use and sexual behaviors. During the intial visits for the study participants complete a variety of baseline measures of impulsivity and decision making ability. From there participants and their guardians complete surveys at a set interval. The final data allows the study to relate the baseline measures to initation of risky behaviors by each subject. The temporal specificity of the timing of risky behaviors can also be measured with this method.

Longitudinal follow up is paramount to the study's goal of understanding how risky decision making is affected by the predictors identified. The temporal aspect of the study allows the tracking of engagement in behaviors considered high risk and how they develop over time. When combined with the inital data collected about the possible variables it allows for associations between the independent variables and engagment in risky behaviors. The temporal measure of risky behavior also allows for the age of initiation to be identified and compared with the identified predictor variables.

Chart showing independent and dependent variables in study

My Role in the Longitudinal Follow Up

My primary role at the Hulvershorn lab was managing the longitudinal follow up process for their participants. The study conducted longitudinal follow up via surveys sent electronically. The longitudinal follow up process consisted of 5 components that had to be completed for each participant.

1) Survey Permission

Before surveys could be sent to participants, permission had to be obtained first. This was done by contacting participants, informining them of their upcoming survey period, and requesting permission to send the apprpriate survey.

2) Survey Creation

After permission was obtained, surveys had to be created. Qualtrics software was used to create the survey. Unique links were created for each participant so they could save and reaccess their survey. Part of my role was to personalize these surveys by filling in the identifiable information such as participant ID and survey period.

3) Survey Dissemination

The surveys were dissmenated via email and parent and child surveys had to be specified correctly. I was also involved in troubleshooting any issues participants had with the surveys.

4) Participant Compensation

After the surveys have been completed the participants recieve compensation. I worked alongside other members of my lab to ensure participants were compensated correctly in a timely manner. I modified the prior contact tracker to include compensation tracking.

5) Contact Tracking

Tracking participants follow up status as well as the date of contact is also part of my role. I have built many tools to aid in the process including an age calculator and monthly survey completion tracker.

Utilize the mock setup of the participant contact data to see what tracking longitudinal follow up looks like. The interactive tool will let you change participant contact status and watch the participant completion and response rates change in accordance.