Facebook as a Recruitment Tool

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In this article from the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, the researcher examines whether Facebook can be used as an effective recruitment tool for nutrition research.  Participant recruitment for research studies typically involves a considerable use of time and resources, so the aim of this study was to evaluate social media’s ability to recruit low-income women for an online nutrition education program.  The method of recruitment was an ad on Facebook, and out of the total of 465 people who clicked on the ad, 81 took a survey determining their eligibility for the program, and 62 were classified as eligible.  The researcher goes on to discuss the ability of a Facebook ad to capture the target audience and the recruitment costs involved and concludes that the study participants recruited by the ad were “representative of low-income Pennsylvanians with respect to food security, eating competence, and demographic characteristics”.  One limitation of this type of recruitment is that it’s self-report and may have attracted participants due to some trait or interest they all have in common, reducing the randomness of the sample.  Despite this fact, it seems that Facebook and other social media sites may be useful for recruiting participants for both nutrition research and interventions.

-Ashley

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