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Thousands of Maine people were randomly mailed a letter seeking their interest and asking them to provide basic demographic information, such as age and gender. From the responses and using US Census data, Mainers who represent a cross-section of Maine people were asked to participate.
The preliminary report from the "Tough Choices" meeting includes demographic information for who was at the meeting.
This process was conducted by the Muskie School at the University of Southern Maine and its Survey Research Center in collaboration with the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center and the National Academy for State Health Policy.
Participants were chosen through a randomized selection process with several steps. When finished and knowing that not everyone invited would attend, a couple thousand Maine people were invited who represent a cross-section, or representative sample, of Maine’s adult population.
Step 1: Over 25,000 people who were randomly selected from telephone white pages, received a letter from Governor Baldacci seeking their interest in participating and asking them to complete a short questionnaire. The questionnaire asked people to provide general demographic information, such as: age, gender, place of employment, source of health care coverage, and more. The list of names and addresses were provided by Survey Sampling Inc., one of two companies that provide population samples to researchers. Survey Sampling has selected samples for over 2000 research projects in the past year. The 25,000 names were randomly taken from all people with telephones in Maine, which is the most complete listing of names and addresses available.
Step 2: Responses to the demographic questionaire were analyzed by the Muskie School in collaboration with the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center and the National Academy for State Health Policy to determine who represent Maine people, according to US Census data. This representative approach for Tough Choices was an effort to learn the views of the broad range of Maine people. This step also included phone and e-mail follow up with people who match the initial demographic criteria.
Step 3: Additional efforts were made to identify people who represent groups that were under-represented by respondents.
Through these steps, approximately 2700 people who represent a cross-section
of Maine people were asked to attend the meeting on May 21st.
