Market research glossary
New to the market research world? Keen researcher looking to brush up on your terminology? The FieldworkHub glossary is here to help you understand common methods and concepts used across the industry, so you can gain better understanding of the tools we use that drive smarter business decisions.
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Incidence rate
The proportion of the target population that qualify to take part in the study, based on the screening criteria that have been set. This is a key cost driver for market research as it determines the number of people who need to be screened to select the sample. To reduce unnecessary screening, the target population is typically narrowed as far as possible based on information that the research agency already holds about potential respondents such as their age, location, profession or household composition. Note that in healthcare research, incidence rate refers to the rate of newly diagnosed cases in a given period (typically a year). The proportion of people living with a condition, whether newly diagnosed or not, is referred to as prevalence.