As reported in The VVA Veteran Jan/Feb 2010
BY KEITH KING, CHAIR

What started as a request from Harley Davidson to know more about our members, turned into one of the most successful polls of our membership. When the idea was first brought up, the Public Affairs Committee agreed, but decided to reach out to the Membership Committee and the Officers for their input. Everyone had ideas. Once the survey was opened, it quickly became a great way to find out about health issues. 

Part of what my company does is public opinion polling and research. We use several companies to help us administer and tabulate survey results. The one we reached out to first is owned by a Vietnam veteran, who is now a VVA member. When we can combine what we do for a living with helping VVA, it’s something we really enjoy. And when the companies we work with offer to do projects for free or at cost, we know that we are really saving VVA significant dollars. That was the case with this survey. 

Most people are used to hearing that a poll is plus or minus 5%, and that is usually preceded by another percentage for a reliability or confidence indicator. Many times you’ll read that a poll has a 95% ± 5% reliability factor. We only needed 345 completed surveys to reach that 95% ± 5% goal. We received more than 3,400 completed surveys, which created a 98% reliability factor at ± 1.7%, which is outstanding for any researcher and, more importantly, for anyone using the survey results. To every VVA and AVVA member who completed the survey, we want to thank you.

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Public Affairs
Committee Report