A successful implementation of e-epidemiology: the Danish pregnancy planning study ‘Snart-Gravid’

Abstract

The attraction of being able to use the internet for the recruitment of an epidemiologic cohort stems mainly from cost efficiency and convenience. The pregnancy planning study ('Snart-Gravid')-a prospective cohort study of Danish women planning a pregnancy-was conducted to evaluate the feasibility and cost efficiency of using internet-based recruitment and follow-up. Feasibility was assessed by examining patient accrual data over time, questionnaire-specific response rates and losses to follow-up. The relative cost efficiency was examined by comparing the study costs with those of an alternative non internet-based study approach. The target recruitment of 2,500 participants over 6 months was achieved using advertisements on a health-related website, supported by a coordinated media strategy at study initiation. Questionnaire cycle-specific response rates ranged from 87 to 90% over the 12-month follow-up. At 6 months, 87% of women had a known outcome or were still under follow-up; at 12 months the figure was 82%.

Comparison of the sociodemographic characteristics of the large NutriNet-Santé e-cohort with French Census data: the issue of volunteer bias revisited

“…2 Important features of such non-probabilitybased research include widespread advertising of the study's website without any control over the number of individuals reached or the types of individuals recruited, 2 as well as improved efficiency with longer follow-up and larger samples. 5 Given that target population coverage and access barriers are rapidly diminishing, 4 authors have indicated that any challenges associated with e-cohorts are likely transitional, 29 and will be solved in the near future. 8 Original aspects regarding the NutriNet-Santé design and methodology include its very large sample size drawn from the general population, a broad focus on nutrition, an assessment of a wide range of personal characteristics and recurrence of the multimedia recruitment campaigns, with each new effort drawing attention to specific public health recommendations regarding diet and nutrition.…”

“…[1][2][3][4][5][6][7] Its capacity to handle high activity volumes, cost-effectiveness, interactive interface with built-in controls, the relatively quick finetuning of instruments, the streamlined data management, access and follow-up, and reduced social anxiety/desirability have given the Internet the high ground in research endeavours. 3 4 8 9 Moreover, the Internet-using population nowadays includes the large majority of individuals and households, 10 and continues to expand across social strata.…”

Dietary Fat Intake and Fecundability in 2 Preconception Cohort Studies

“…SF is an expansion of the Snart Gravid ("Soon Pregnant") study, which has been described previously (15,16). Recruitment for SF was Internet-based and began in 2011 with advertisements placed on Danish health-related websites and blogs.…”

Factors associated with the need for information about medicines among pregnant women – A multinational internet-based survey

“…In some countries (Australia, Canada, France, Russia, the Netherlands, and the USA), the study sample was small compared to the general birthing population, 6 and thus, the generalizability of our findings for these specific countries should be interpreted with caution. Using this kind of an approach, a conventional response rate cannot be calculated, but reasonable validity can be expected based on previous epidemiological studies using web-based recruitment methods [12][13][14] and based on our comparison with the birth population in the participating countries. 6 Overall, the age structure of the study population matches the birthing populations in each country quite well.…”