Recruiting Migrants for Health Research Through Social Network Sites: An Online Survey Among Chinese Migrants in Australia

Abstract

BackgroundTraditionally, postal surveys or face to face interviews are the main approaches for health researchers to obtain essential research data. However, with the prevalence of information technology and Internet, Web-based surveys are gaining popularity in health research.ObjectiveThis study aims to report the process and outcomes of recruiting Chinese migrants through social network sites in Australia and to examine the sample characteristics of online recruitment by comparing the sample which was recruited by an online survey to a sample of Australian Chinese migrants collected by a postal survey.MethodsDescriptive analyses were performed to describe and compare the process and outcomes of online recruitment with postal survey questionnaires. Chi square tests and t tests were performed to assess the differences between the two samples for categorical and continuous variables respectively.ResultsIn total, 473 Chinese migrants completed the online health survey from July to October 2013. Out of 426 participants recruited through the three Chinese social network sites in Australia, over 86.6% (369/426) were recruited within six weeks. Participants of the Web-based survey were younger, with a higher education level or had resided in Australia for less time compared to those recruited via a postal survey. However, there was no significant difference in gender, marital status, and professional occupation.ConclusionsThe recruitment of Chinese migrants through social network sites in our online survey was feasible. Compared to a postal survey of Chinese migrants, the online survey attracted different group of Chinese migrants who may have diverse health needs and concerns. Our findings provided insightful information for researchers who are considering employing a Web-based approach to recruit migrants and ethnic minority participants.

The Use of Social Media for Health Research Purposes: Scoping Review

“…When recruiting and providing incentives, users might be tempted to participate multiple times. Researchers should ensure that the study allows only one response from a given IP address [92,93]. A few guidelines and frameworks have already been created to guide health researchers in using social media and prevent such issues [94][95][96][97][98].…”

Strategies for Recruiting Migrants to Participate in a Sexual Health Survey: Methods, Results, and Lessons

“…The most obvious example of this was the decision to post survey links on websites specifically developed for migrant communities, such as the Korean-Australian websites Adelaide Focus and MissyAUS. Whereas the literature on the use of this recruitment strategy for migrants is limited, one Australian study noted similar successes using Chinese social network sites such as Oursteps, Ozyoyo, and Freeoz [26]. The fact that this recruitment method was driven by an individual local project officer in our study meant that a unique string query was not created to enable participants referred from these sites to be precisely quantified.…”

Feasibility of using respondent-driven sampling to recruit participants in superdiverse neighbourhoods for a general health survey

“…Register-based sampling (RBS) is cited as one of the main contributors towards the lower participation of persons with a migrant background, due to difficulties in identifying migrants and language barriers (Reiss et al 2014). To try and combat this, different methods, including snowball sampling, targeted-sampling as well as Respondent-Driven Sampling (RDS), have been put forward (Shaghaghi, Bhopal and Sheikh 2011;Hu, Wong and Wang 2015). RDS is a modified chain-referral sampling approach which was developed by Heckathorn (1997).…”