Estimation of Geographic Variation in Human Papillomavirus Vaccine Uptake in Men and Women: An Online Survey Using Facebook Recruitment

Abstract

BackgroundFederally funded surveys of human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine uptake are important for pinpointing geographically based health disparities. Although national and state level data are available, local (ie, county and postal code level) data are not due to small sample sizes, confidentiality concerns, and cost. Local level HPV vaccine uptake data may be feasible to obtain by targeting specific geographic areas through social media advertising and recruitment strategies, in combination with online surveys.ObjectiveOur goal was to use Facebook-based recruitment and online surveys to estimate local variation in HPV vaccine uptake among young men and women in Minnesota.MethodsFrom November 2012 to January 2013, men and women were recruited via a targeted Facebook advertisement campaign to complete an online survey about HPV vaccination practices. The Facebook advertisements were targeted to recruit men and women by location (25 mile radius of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States), age (18-30 years), and language (English).ResultsOf the 2079 men and women who responded to the Facebook advertisements and visited the study website, 1003 (48.2%) enrolled in the study and completed the survey. The average advertising cost per completed survey was US $1.36. Among those who reported their postal code, 90.6% (881/972) of the participants lived within the previously defined geographic study area. Receipt of 1 dose or more of HPV vaccine was reported by 65.6% women (351/535), and 13.0% (45/347) of men. These results differ from previously reported Minnesota state level estimates (53.8% for young women and 20.8% for young men) and from national estimates (34.5% for women and 2.3% for men).ConclusionsThis study shows that recruiting a representative sample of young men and women based on county and postal code location to complete a survey on HPV vaccination uptake via the Internet is a cost-effective and feasible strategy. This study also highlights the need for local estimates to assess the variation in HPV vaccine uptake, as these estimates differ considerably from those obtained using survey data that are aggregated to the state or federal level.

Evaluating different recruitment methods in a longitudinal survey: Findings from the pan-European PASTA project (Preprint)

“…street recruitment) were very effective in terms of the number of recruited participants; recruiting people through social media (mainly Facebook) was not only effective, but also very time-efficient. Similar results were observed by others [4,10,11], who applied web based sampling in their research. Regarding to the near ubiquity of the Internet, it has become easier for people to engage in surveys [22] as it can overcome barriers such as physical distance, transportation, and limited time [23].…”

“…by visiting seniors who recently completed computer courses), the most strategies attracted a higher proportion of younger people. Several studies, however, report successfully recruiting people that reflect the demographic spread of the general population by using opportunistic sampling approaches [9,11,17]. People in our sample were further highly educated (72.5 % possessed a university degree), which is a common occurrence for survey research [9,24,25].…”

“…due to an increase in exclusive use of mobile phones or email rather than traditional mail or landline phone. Opportunistic approaches such as recruitment via social media promise cost savings [4,[7][8][9][10][11][12] and a better coverage of person groups that are hard to reach with the traditional recruitment methods, like parents of adolescents [8], adolescents themselves [10], people with special conditions [13,14], smokers [15] or low-income people [16]. Social media, like Facebook and Twitter, can potentially have a strong snowballing effect [17] given their intensive use and continuing growth (around 1.94 billion monthly active Facebook users worldwide [26]), their feature that information can be shared very easily among networks [17], and are therefore able to reach a large number of people in a very short time.…”

“…One major drawback of the opportunistic recruitment methods is the concern of sample bias as the population reached thereby does not necessarily represent each group of the total population equally well [10]. Specific types of social media might, for example, be preferably used by younger people [3,7,11] and not by elderly. In this case, elderly have little chance to be sampled at all.…”

The role of epidemiology in MS research: Past successes, current challenges and future potential

“…62,[64][65][66] There is necessarily a limitation in that the populations accessed by these methods will vary as a function of age and access to technology; however, similar issues have arisen with the use of classical methods, like landline phone communication, particularly among younger populations. 67,68 The reverse age limitation is found with social media and mobile methods 66 .…”