Have you ever wondered what the single most important problem facing Minnesotans is? So have we.

For the last thirty-five years our office has administered the Minnesota State Survey (MSS), a statewide telephone omnibus survey about current issues facing Minnesotans. Every year we have asked Minnesota Residents “What is the single most important problem facing people in Minnesota today?”

Our office has been offering qualitative data collection services for 20+ years. Qualitative research is great because it allows for the capturing of information on feelings, beliefs, and experiences at a level of detail that is typically unmatched by quantitative research.

OMS continued to partner with University of Minnesota researchers at the Minnesota State Fair Driven to Discover Research Facility. Our collaboration included increasing awareness of the facility, conducting an innovative SMS data collection experiment, and consulting on how to reach eligible attendees in a large longitudinal study of young adults in Minnesota.

Achieving high response rates is a critical component of data collection, especially when working with a longitudinal study such as Project EAT, which has spanned over a decade.

OMS is happy to welcome Emily Dobratz to our team. Emily was hired in early August 2018 as a Project Specialist. She has a Masters of Public Health degree from the University of Minnesota with a concentration in community health promotion and a minor in epidemiology. Her undergraduate degree is in nutritional science from the University of Wisconsin Madison.