Hillsborough wants residents to complete coronavirus info survey

Tampa — Hillsborough County Center. By Seán Kinane / WMNF News (25 April 2019).

Here is a link to many coronavirus resources

Hillsborough County wants to survey its residents about what kind of information they have and might need about COVID-19. In the anonymous online survey, residents will be asked things like is anything preventing them from getting a coronavirus test and do they need information about accessing social services.

Their coronavirus survey is at HCFLGov.net/StaysafeInput

Terri Cordoba-Hewitt is the insight and consumer analyst for Hillsborough County.

“The survey is really to help us figure out how to best communicate with our citizens throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. It is important for us to gather data so we can really develop some data-driven strategies and communications for people that are going through this.

“There’s a couple ways that people can find the survey. The survey is in Spanish and in English.

“They can take it online, or they can take it via text. For the text what they need to do text the word staysafe to 73224. If they want to take it in Spanish they can text the words staysafeespanol, altogether, to 73224. If they want to take it online they just have to go to hcflgov.net/staysafeinput and then there they’re able to take it in Spanish and English.

“We’re asking a lot of knowledge-based questions and behavioral questions. Things like what would prevent you and your family, if you are not feeling well, to be tested for COVID-19.

“We’re asking things, what would prohibit you from wearing a mask in public. Things we think people know, but it’s important to kind of re-educate and reiterate. How many feet should you stay away from one another when practicing social distance? It may sound silly but not everybody knows that answer. So it’s important for us to educate and also get feedback from them that would be helpful to us to better communicate and provide resources to our community.”

Listen:

“Right now the length of time is eight weeks. We’re going to run the survey for eight weeks. That is not concrete and set in stone. If we feel that we are not getting data that is useful to use to be able to serve our residents better, we might have it run a little bit longer. We’re going to have to see but right now it’s eight weeks.

“We are taking the data. Our first data, we launched the survey within in an hour we had close to 1,000 people who were already participating. We have close to 8,000 participants right now. So we have a lot of really rich data to help us figure out some of the questions that are keeping us up at night. You know, why people are not getting tested. What’s the best resource that we can provide to them that information. We have a lot of really statistical data that will really help us make some really good decisions.

“You know it’s still a little too soon. We’re actually going through all the data. We started going through it last night and throughout the weekend. We’ll have some updates and some good data to make some decisions. Hopefully by next week to start kind of seeing what kind of information we should put out and resources.

“Things like, for example, and this is just day one, we took the survey, again it is in Spanish. And the folks that answered the survey in Spanish, when asked why, what prohibited you from wearing a mask, we got a large percentage of people saying I don’t know how to make a mask. So one of the things that we’re doing is we’re actually creating a YouTube video that’s going to be available to our residents in Spanish on how to make a mask.

“So those are the things, those are the insights we’re looking for again, just to better serve our community and help people and provide information to those who are needing information.”