Experience and lessons learned from multi-modal internet-based recruitment of U.S. Vietnamese into research

• Published in: PloS one 2021-08, Vol.16 (8), p.e0256074
• Main Authors: Vu, Milkie, Huynh, Victoria N, Bednarczyk, Robert A, Escoffery, Cam, Ta, Danny, Nguyen, Tien T, Berg, Carla J
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adult; Aggregates; Asian - psychology; Asian - statistics & numerical data; Asian Americans; Asians; Biology and Life Sciences; Cervical cancer; Computer and Information Sciences; COVID-19; Cultural Characteristics; Cultural factors; Data collection; Datasets; Demographic aspects; Employee recruitment; Employment; Ethnic factors; Female; Health education; Health services utilization; Human papillomavirus; Human resource management; Humans; Immunization; Internet; Male; Medicine and Health Sciences; Methods; Middle Aged; Minority & ethnic groups; Pandemics; Patient Selection; People and Places; Population; Public health; Recruitment; Research and Analysis Methods; Sampling; Selection Bias; Social networks; Social Sciences; Socioeconomic Factors; Subgroups; Vaccines; Variance analysis; Womens health
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0256074

Asian-Americans are one of the most understudied racial/ethnic minority populations. To increase representation of Asian subgroups, researchers have traditionally relied on data collection at community venues and events. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has created serious challenges for in-person data collection. In this case study, we describe multi-modal strategies for online recruitment of U.S. Vietnamese parents, compare response rates and participant characteristics among strategies, and discuss lessons learned. We recruited 408 participants from community-based organizations (CBOs) (n = 68), Facebook groups (n = 97), listservs (n = 4), personal network (n = 42), and snowball sampling (n = 197). Using chi-square tests and one-way analyses of variance, we compared participants recruited through different strategies regarding sociodemographic characteristics, acculturation-related characteristics, and mobile health usage. The overall response rate was 71.8% (range: 51.5% for Vietnamese CBOs to 86.6% for Facebook groups). Significant differences exist for all sociodemographic and almost all acculturation-related characteristics among recruitment strategies. Notably, CBO-recruited participants were the oldest, had lived in the U.S. for the longest duration, and had the lowest Vietnamese language ability. We found some similarities between Facebook-recruited participants and those referred by Facebook-recruited participants. Mobile health usage was high and did not vary based on recruitment strategies. Challenges included encountering fraudulent responses (e.g., non-Vietnamese). Perceived benefits and trust appeared to facilitate recruitment. Facebook and snowball sampling may be feasible strategies to recruit U.S. Vietnamese. Findings suggest the potential for mobile-based research implementation. Perceived benefits and trust could encourage participation and may be related to cultural ties. Attention should be paid to recruitment with CBOs and handling fraudulent responses.