About Incidence Rates (IR)

Incidence Rate is a measure of the rate of occurrence or the percentage of persons eligible to participate in a study.

For example, in a study of American vehicle owners, if the eligibility of research is defined as "owning a vehicle", then an Estimated IR will be the percentage of Americans who own a vehicle, out of the total number of Americans (meaning whether they own a vehicle or not).

In other words, to calculate incidence in the contact of market research, the formula is:

1. From the Target Market page, click the Please select an IR drop-down to select an Estimated Incidence Rate. This drop-down is also available on the Survey Editor page.

You will not be able to launch your survey without selecting an Estimated Incidence Rate. Actual IR will be determined after your survey is in field and collecting completes.

aytm's House Tags come with a maximum IR, since we have profiled our panelists by these traits and are familiar with the IR associated with each.

If you choose to use your own Prequalification questions, or a combination of House Tags and Prequals, you will need to estimate your own IR, since our system can't predict the IR for your questions.

Generally speaking, the more screening questions added to a study, the lower the overall IR becomes. Remember, the incidence rate is the percentage of people who qualify for your survey after screening questions.

1. On the Target Market page, click into the 2300+ House Tags field to enter search terms, or begin scrolling through the available House Tags.
2. Alternatively, on the Survey Editor page, click Add a Prequal.

It's essential to set an estimated IR for a survey, as it will help determine feasibility (can you reach people in your target market), fielding time (how long will it take the survey to complete), and how we manage inviting people from our panel to participate in a survey. If you are not sure, try these methods for estimating IR.

• Internal Company Data: Leverage any internal company data to help determine the incidence rate. If applicable, leverage any previous market research, mine your client data, or pick your co-worker's brain. 
• Online Research: Google it! If the target is already well-researched or a popular topic, it's possible to find statistics on your market after a quick internet search. There are even paid services that have databases of stats to help you determine incidence. If you go this route, be sure that your source of data is reliable. 
• Run an IR test survey: You can run a short survey that uses the exact screening questions you plan to use as regular survey questions. Then launch to the general population; 100-200 respondents is usually sufficient. Then you can filter the results to narrow down who would qualify for your survey to determine the incidence. Please reach out to our support team for help with launching an IR test survey.