Digital Global Recruitment for Women's Health Research: Cross-sectional Study

Abstract

Background: With the increased popularity of mobile menstrual tracking apps and boosted Facebook posts, there is a unique opportunity to recruit research study participants from across the globe via these modalities to evaluate women's health. However, no studies to date have assessed the feasibility of using these recruitment sources for epidemiological research on ovulation and menstruation.

Objective: The objective of this study was to assess the feasibility of recruiting a diverse sample of women to an epidemiological study of ovulation and menstruation (OM) health (OM Global Health Study) using digital recruitment sources. The feasibility and diversity were assessed via click and participation rates, geographic location, BMI, smoking status, and other demographic information.

Methods: Participants were actively recruited via in-app messages using the menstrual tracking app Clue (BioWink GmbH) and a boosted Facebook post by DivaCup (Diva International Inc.). Other passive recruitment methods also took place throughout the recruitment period (eg, email communications, blogs, other social media). The proportion of participants who visited the study website after viewing and clicking the hypertext link (click rates) in the in-app messages and boosted Facebook post and the proportion of participants who completed the surveys per the number of completed consent and eligibility screeners (participation rates) were used to quantify the success of recruiting participants to the study website and study survey completion, respectively. Survey completion was defined as finishing the pregnancy and birth history section of the OM Global Health Study questionnaire.

Results: The recruitment period was from February 27, 2018, through January 24, 2020. In-app messages and the boosted Facebook post were seen by 104,000 and 21,400 people, respectively. Overall, 215 participants started the OM Global Health Study survey, of which 140 (65.1%), 39 (18.1%), and 36 (16.8%) participants were recruited via the app, the boosted Facebook post, and other passive recruitment methods, respectively. The click rate via the app was 18.9% (19,700 clicks/104,000 ad views) and 1.6% via the boosted Facebook post (340 clicks/21,400 ad views.) The overall participation rate was 44.6% (198/444), and the average participant age was 21.8 (SD 6.1) years. In terms of geographic and racial/ethnic diversity, 91 (44.2%) of the participants resided outside the United States and 147 (70.7%) identified as non-Hispanic White. In-app recruitment produced the most geographically diverse stream, with 44 (32.8%) of the 134 participants in Europe, 77 (57.5%) in North America, and 13 (9.8%) in other parts of the world. Both human error and nonhuman procedural breakdowns occurred during the recruitment process, including a computer programming error related to age eligibility and a hacking attempt by an internet bot.

Conclusions: In-app messages using the menstrual tracking app Clue were the most successful method for recruiting participants from many geographic regions and producing the greatest numbers of started and completed surveys. This study demonstrates the utility of digital recruitment to enroll participants from diverse geographic locations and provides some lessons to avoid technical recruitment errors in future digital recruitment strategies for epidemiological research.

Keywords: Facebook; attrition; digital health; digital recruitment; eHealth; epidemiology research; health app; health application; health technology; in-app message; internet; mHealth; menstrual; menstrual health; menstrual tracking app; menstruation; mobile health; ovulation; participant; participation; recruit; reproduction; reproductive health; research subject; social media; tracking app; women's health.

Figure 1

Timeline of digital recruitment. Note: Vertical red lines denote when active recruitment events (boosted Facebook post and in-app messages) occurred.

Figure 2

Digital recruitment materials: (a) boosted Facebook post, (b) in-app messages messaging, and (c) examples from other passive recruitment methods. PCOS: polycystic ovary syndrome.

Figure 3

Geographic distribution of participants within the United States.