The essential guidelines for every health research study (including your community survey) are listed below.

• Research should focus on priority health problems in the community, and there should be a clear statement of the problems.
• A research study needs clear objectives and a plan; it should not be aimlessly looking for something in the hope that you will come across a solution.
• The research plan should be action-oriented, i.e. aimed at discovering solutions for a priority health problem.
• It should be participatory in nature, involving all stakeholders (see Section 10.1.2).
• Simple, short-term research designs that are likely to yield practical results quickly should be used wherever possible.
• The planned research should be cost-effective, i.e. affordable within available budgets and offering good 'value for money' in terms of its likely outcomes.
• The researcher(s) should have appropriate expertise in the data collection methods and study design; the work should be carried out systematically and with patience, and should not be hurried.
• The results should be based on observable evidence; observations, descriptions and results should be carefully recorded and accurately reported without any bias.
• The research should be scheduled in such a way that results will be available in time to take the necessary actions recommended by the research findings.
• Results should be presented in formats that are most useful for administrators, decision makers and community members to understand (see Study Session 13).
• The research should be reproducible, so that the same result could be obtained by different investigators if they used the same methods.