Still a Hard-to-Reach Population? Using Social Media to Recruit Latino Gay Couples for an HIV Intervention Adaptation Study

Abstract

BackgroundOnline social networking use has increased rapidly among African American and Latino men who have sex with men (MSM), making it important to understand how these technologies can be used to reach, retain, and maintain individuals in care and promote health wellness. In particular, the Internet is increasingly recognized as a platform for health communication and education. However, little is known about how primarily Spanish-speaking populations use and engage with each other through social media platforms.ObjectiveWe aimed to recruit eligible couples for a study to adapt “Connect ‘n Unite” (an HIV prevention intervention initially created for black gay couples) for Spanish-speaking Latino gay couples living in New York City.MethodsIn order to successfully design and implement an effective social media recruitment campaign to reach Spanish-speaking Latino gay couples for our ongoing “Latinos en Pareja” study, our community stakeholders and research team used McGuire’s communication/persuasion matrix. The matrix guided our research, specifically each marketing “channel”, targeted “message”, and target population or “receiver”. We developed a social media recruitment protocol and trained our research staff and stakeholders to conduct social media recruitment.ResultsAs a result, in just 1 month, we recruited all of our subjects (N=14 couples, that is, N=28 participants) and reached more than 35,658 participants through different channels. One of the major successes of our social media recruitment campaign was to build a strong stakeholder base that became involved early on in all aspects of the research process—from pilot study writing and development to recruitment and retention. In addition, the variety of “messages” used across different social media platforms (including Facebook, the “Latinos en Pareja” study website, Craigslist, and various smartphone applications such as Grindr, SCRUFF, and Jack’d) helped recruit Latino gay couples. We also relied on a wide range of community-based organizations across New York City to promote the study and build in the social media components.ConclusionsOur findings highlight the importance of incorporating communication technologies into the recruitment and engagement of participants in HIV interventions. Particularly, the success of our social media recruitment strategy with Spanish-speaking Latino MSM shows that this population is not particularly “hard to reach”, as it is often characterized within public health literature.

Feasibility of using GrindrTM to distribute HIV self-test kits to men who have sex with men in Los Angeles, California

“…3 We found that it was feasible to use a smartphone app to distribute HIV self-test kits. GrindrÔ users were willing to provide personal information (name, address, etc.)…”

“…1 Young men who have sex with men (MSM) are at a disproportionate risk of acquiring HIV infection, particularly Black and Hispanic men, 2 and are also frequent users of social networking apps. 3 One of the most commonly used apps for social and sexual networking among MSM is GrindrÔ, with over 5 million users in 192 countries. 4 GrindrÔ users also have a high rate of sexual risk behaviour including condomless anal intercourse.…”

Using Facebook for Health Promotion in “Hard-to-Reach” Truck Drivers: Qualitative Analysis (Preprint)

“…This delivers a more cohesive intervention strategy, and it provides opportunities to 'piggyback' the advertisement of less-popular interventions on more-popular ones with higher levels of engagement. Other studies seeking to engage hard-to-reach groups using social media health promotion interventions deliver interventions via a range of different channels, including Facebook, Twitter, Skype, Instagram and other popular applications [54,[56][57][58][59]. This multipronged approach significantly increases the reach of the intervention and provides additional opportunities to tailor strategies to each workplace's unique context.…”

Adelante Ambassadors: Using Digital Media to Facilitate Community Engagement and Risk-Prevention for Latino Youth

“…Innovative mobile and digital media strategies may influence health behavior, due to the ability to tailor content to specific audiences and connect with youth in an interactive and social way (Backinger, Fagan, Matthews, & Grana, 2003;Montgomery & Chester, 2009;Neiger et al, 2012). However, limited research exists on applying culturally relevant, new media interventions specific to Latino immigrant youth Bull, Levine, Black, Schmiege, & Santelli, 2012;Friedman et al, 2014a;Friedman et al, 2014b;Martínez et al, 2014;Vyas, Landry, Schnider, Rojas, & Wood, 2012;Young, Szekeres, & Coates, 2013). This paper describes the pilot Youth Ambassador component of the Adelante program for Latino immigrant youth, which used digital media and community-based participatory research to build positive youth development (PYD) assets as a prevention mechanism to reduce co-occurring health risks of substance use, sexual risk, and interpersonal violence.…”