Capturing Sensitive Information from Difficult-to-Reach Populations : Evidence from a NovelInternet-Based Survey in Yemen

As conflicts across the globe escalate and data collection in these settings becomes moresensitive, policy makers and researchers are forced to turn to alternative methods for accurately collecting vitalinformation. This paper assesses the ability of novel and anonymous internet-based surveys to elicit sensitiveinformation in the Republic of Yemen's conflict by comparing identical sensitive and non-sensitive questions inan internet survey to a concurrent mobile phone survey. There were significant differences between the modalities inall the sensitive questions, with a greater share of respondents expressing sensitive views in the internetsurvey. The differences between modalities was larger for sensitive questions than for non-sensitive questions, andall the differences were qualitatively identical for subsets of the sample that are underrepresented in internet surveys.Overall, the results suggest that internet surveys can be an effective tool to use in conjunction with other techniquesto acquire information that would otherwise be difficult to collect.