Survey Guidelines & Submission Process

Recent increasing interest in surveying the ABEA membership has necessitated the development of formal guidelines. ABEA recognizes the value of well-designed survey research; to provide useful information for the otolaryngology community and colleagues, a survey should address a novel clinical question.

Reviewing surveys for ABEA membership involves meticulous analysis of applicants’ qualifications and adherence to the association’s standards, ensuring a robust community of ethical and proficient professionals. Thorough scrutiny guarantees that ABEA maintains its reputation as a trusted resource in clinical care, scientific rigor, and patient advocacy for complex aerodigestive diseases.

What our Members can be Assured: To protect our members from email spam and to elevate the response rate of surveys by our members and for our researchers, the ABEA Research and Education Committee have outlined survey criteria. Surveys will undergo a blinded review by the committee, brought to executive leadership for final approval. In turn, we ask our members to be fully engaged in the surveys we do send on behalf of the ABEA.

There will be no more than 3 surveys selected per year for membership distribution, and these will be sent by email just prior to the annual ABEA meeting at COSM. These will also be included as part of the Newsletter when possible. New for 2026: each of the selected surveys will also be available for in person response during the ABEA meeting via QR code, with the hopes of improving survey response rate.

What our Researchers can be Assured: With a limited number of surveys, we aim to increase the response rate. We value deliberate, thoughtful research, that asks critical questions related to complex bronchoesophagology pathology. Submission deadlines as designated below for expedited review.

Submission Deadline:
Feb 1, 2027 (survey selection completed by April 1, 2027)

The proposed survey criteria to be reviewed are summarized below:

• In order to protect our members from email spam, surveys should address an important and relevant topic that applies to a majority of the membership and will add to the field/literature.
• The survey should have clearly stated objective(s).
• The survey questions should focus on answering/addressing the survey objective(s) and be designed to generate meaningful statistical analyses; questions should be limited to only those used in analyzing the responses or describing the respondents.
• The survey should not take more than 10 minutes to complete and should have no more than 20 questions (inclusive of sub-questions or multiple parts), not including membership question, standardized demographic information, and survey exit criteria (see below).
  • The invitation to complete the survey must state:
    • the total number of questions
    • the anticipated completion time.
  • The survey should begin with the following set of questions (which will not count towards the 20 question maximum):
    • A question asking respondents to identify their ABEA membership status with the following options: (1) Active member, (2) Senior member, (3) Associate member, (4) Honorary member, (5) International member, (6) Candidate member, (7) Physician in-training. This will permit the survey denominator to be known (based on membership status from ABEA records) and the response rate calculated. Descriptions of each member category are located on the ABEA website.
    • Up to 5 questions on basic demographic data (eg years in practice, subspecialty type, etc) so that those who decline participation can be compared to those who complete the survey, thereby helping assess the ability to generalize the results. View Approved Standardized Demographic Questions.
    • A question/function for respondents to decline participation if they do not feel qualified to respond.
• A letter of support from the ABEA member acting as the survey sponsor should be included with the request to review the survey.
• A letter of approval/exemption from the IRB must be uploaded at the time of request
  or
• immediately prior to disbursement to the ABEA Membership.
• A full copy of the planned survey de-identified should be uploaded for the committee review to limit individual or institutional bias to the best of the committee’s ability