Internet-Based Recruitment and Retention of Young Adults With Type 1 Diabetes: Cross-Sectional Study

BACKGROUND: Multiple research strategies are required to recruit and engage a representative cohort of young adults in diabetes research. In this report, we describe an approach for internet-based recruitment for a repeated-measures descriptive study. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this cross-sectional study was to determine whether internet-based recruitment through multiple social media platforms, a clinical research platform, and cooperation with community partnerships—College Diabetes Network and Beyond Type 1—would serve as an effective way to recruit a representative sample of young adults aged 18-25 years with type 1 diabetes (T1D). METHODS: We conducted a repeated-measures descriptive study. We captured enrollment rates and participant characteristics acquired from each social media platform through survey data and Facebook analytics. This study was advertised via paid postings across a combination of different social media platforms (eg, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Reddit). We used quarterly application postings, quarterly newsletters, and participation in the ResearchMatch registry to identify potentially eligible participants from February 3, 2021, to June 6, 2022. RESULTS: ResearchMatch proved to be the most cost-effective strategy overall, yielding the highest gender and racial diversity compared to other internet platforms (eg, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Reddit), application postings (eg, Beyond Type 1), and newsletters (eg, College Diabetes Network and a local area college). However, we propose that the combination of these approaches yielded a larger, more diverse sample compared to any individual strategy. Our recruitment cost was US $16.69 per eligible participant, with a 1.27% conversion rate and a 30% eligibility rate. CONCLUSIONS: Recruiting young adults with T1D across multiple internet-based platforms was an effective strategy to yield a moderately diverse sample. Leveraging various recruitment strategies is necessary to produce a representative sample of young adults with T1D. As the internet becomes a larger forum for study recruitment, participants from underrepresented backgrounds may continue engaging in research through advertisements on the internet and other internet-based recruitment platforms.