National Outreach Survey for Transportation
Frequently Asked Questions
National Outreach Survey for Transportation
Frequently Asked Questions
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The 2021 National Outreach Survey for Transportation (NOST)
has now ended. Access the NOST report here.
National Outreach Survey for Transportation
Frequently Asked Questions
United Against Slavery (UAS) is hosting the National Outreach Survey (NOS) for Transportation, as the first-ever recipient of the USDOT Combating Human Trafficking in Transportation Impact Award. This is a UAS survey and not a USDOT survey. Information about the USDOT award can be found here.
The NOST is now confirmed to launch July 5, 2021. Custom survey links will be sent to each Oversight Agency during the 1-2 weeks prior to the launch. We ask that the links not be distributed until July 5.
The second launch will begin mid-September and will conclude late November.
The survey is open to participate for 60 days after it has been launched. The first launch starts in early July and will conclude in early September.
The second launch will begin in mid-September and will conclude in late November. This launch will include human trafficking survivors, service providers, additional transportation companies, federal partner(s), and our global contributors.
No, this survey is open to transportation entities that have employees/members in the U.S. and in other countries. In addition, survivors in other countries may participate if they were trafficked into the United States or across borders from the U.S. into other countries.
English is the primary language selected for this survey; however, up to 55+ language translations are available to accommodate survey respondents with a different native language.
Yes, this survey is an online survey. We understand this may present limitations for including respondents that do not have internet access. If there is a need to provide a paper questionnaire, please contact the Research Team at research@unitedagainstslavery.org.
No, there is a save and continue feature that allows you to complete the survey at different times and on different devices. An email with a survey link will be sent to the respondent immediately upon starting the survey. Please make sure to check the spam folder for this link. A respondent may use this link to regain access to their incomplete survey until the survey closes.
Yes, the survey protects your identity and only asks limited personal identifiers. The data will be anonymized prior to being exported for analysis. The National Outreach Survey will never ask for a date of birth nor a social security number.
The NOS for Transportation includes custom survey questions for three different gruops: 1) modes of transportation and subsets in those groups, 2) sex and/or labor trafficking survivors, and 3) direct victim service providers.
Stakeholder groups outside of the transportation industry can participate in the large-scale National Outreach Survey that will be launched at a later date.
Each transportation group and each subset group have custom survey questions; however, there are baseline questions that are asked to everyone. In addition, survivors have custom survey questions regarding how transportation was used during their exploitation (if applicable) and how transportation is/was used during their healing journeys.
The NOS for Transportation is a comprehensive frontline survey and should take an average of 35 minutes to complete both Parts. There are two Parts to the study. Part 1 is the custom survey questions for each group. Part 2 is optional and includes general public opinion questions that are available to every stakeholder group to complete. This data will confirm what the survey respondent knows and doesn't know about sex and labor trafficking. Part 2 data can help inform new legislative policies and future human trafficking training and awareness sessions. Survey respondents can decline the option to complete Part 2. Although the average time to complete Part 1 and Part 2 is 35 minutes, some respondents may take less or more time, depending upon the length of time taken to complete each question. Something to consider: For the time it takes to watch a favorite TV show, each survey respondent has the opportunity to impact positive change in the fight against sex and labor trafficking.
Yes, the anonymized data will be analyzed and will be presented in a final report and will also be presented in an open-source database.
No, the large-scale National Outreach Survey includes custom survey questions for more than 23 anti-trafficking stakeholder groups, including transportation. The intention of UAS is to repeat the NOS every 2-3 years to help measure benchmarks of progress in each stakeholder group.
Yes, we have a Survivor Leader Advisory Council that is providing support throughout the project, contributing topics and survey questions to be included on the survey instrument, reviewing the survivor survey questions, and contributing recommendations to the transportation industry and policy makers in our final report.
There is no remuneration for participating as a Contributor. The USDOT Combating Human Trafficking in Transportation Impact Award includes $50,000 funding, so UAS is presenting advantageous benefits for participation, given the financial limitations.
The Contributor selection process will continue on an as-needed basis; however, selections will occur on a first-come, first serve basis, so early confirmation is encouraged.
Some of those benefits include, but are not limited to, 1) collaborating with other experts and contributing your expertise in this historic transportation study to seek a positive impact for survivors of sex and labor trafficking and those who work on their behalf, 2) receiving a special Letter of Participation from United Against Slavery, 3) being recognized as a Contributor in the final report, which will be presented to the USDOT Secretary and the public-at-large, 4) having early access to NOS data, and 5) publishing on NOS data at a pre-determined date.
An entity, company, or individual that has been approved by the Principal Investigator or the Co-Principal Investigator to serve on the NOS for Transportation study. This can include Transportation Institutes, Working Group Chair/Co-Chair/Members, Students who receive prior-approval, Anti-trafficking Experts, and/or Researchers. Contributors can remain anonymous, if desired.
There are multiple opportunities to serve as a Contributor and the time commitment will vary upon each role. Serving as a Chair or Co-Chair of a Working may require 10-20 hours over the next year, whereas members of a Working Group may only serve up to 10 hours in the same time frame. For Contributors that are participating in the data analytics or authoring a segment of the final report, time will vary according to the time allocated to each project. Each Working Group will be granted an opportunity to submit a short brief for inclusion on the final report and all approved Contributors will be publicly acknowledged for their participation, if desired.
An Oversight Agency is an approved entity with employees or members that agrees to distribute a custom NOS survey link to their database. UAS will never access their database and will provide a survey link to be distributed by the OA to their database.
Any transportation entity that has a database of employees or members (such as a Union) and is willing to distribute a custom NOS survey link to their database once the study has been launched.
The research team will consider any transportation entity that has employees or members. We will actively seek entities with larger employee/member bases but will consider smaller groups as well. Entities can have as few as 10 employees/members or as many as 100,000+ in the United States and in other countries.
Yes, prior to February 28, 2021, you may request custom survey questions to be drafted for multiple groups. For example, 1) Trucking Company #1 requests custom questions for its drivers and for its distribution center workers; 2) while Trucking Company #2 requests questions only for its drivers; 3) a railway requests custom questions for its Engineers and station agents; and 3) an airline requests custom questions for its Flight Attendants, Pilots, and Ground Crew. The requests can be customized to each OA based upon their staffing needs. The research team will provide a form to be completed by the OA and the groups will be identified on that form. The research team will then draft custom survey questions for each group. An OA may add additional subset groups after the November 1 deadline but the subset(s) will be asked the baseline questions already drafted and not custom questions.
The OA is responsible to distribute a custom NOS survey link to their database of employees/members. The NOS for Transportation allows for custom survey questions for multiple subsets in each mode of transportation, so if the OA would like custom questions for multiple groups, an interview will be set up to confirm details of each group. There is minimum time commitment to participate as an OA. Each OA's participation is appreciated and will help us reach a larger population of survey respondents across the transportation industry.
The window to sign up to become an Oversight Agency in the first launch is now closed.
Entities in the transportation industry, service providers, or those who work with sex and/or labor trafficking survivors can sign up for our second launch in September 2021.
Please click this link to proceed.
Please email research@unitedagainstslavery.org.