ArticleDigital health
Using social media for health research: Methodological and ethical considerations for recruitment and intervention delivery.
Article in Digital health. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT05824273 (Leveraging Social Media to Increase Lung Cancer Screening Awareness, Knowledge and Uptake in High-Risk Populations), which is not on this map. Cited by 121 papers, 6 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Leveraging Social Media to Increase Lung Cancer Screening Awareness, Knowledge and Uptake in High-Risk Populations
Who cites it
121 citing papers in PubMed, 6 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Identifying Social Media-Based Interactions That Help Adults to Adhere to Weight Loss Goals: A Systematic Review.Obesity reviews : an official journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity · 2026Pooled it
- A Systematic Review of the Impacts of Media Mental Health Awareness Campaigns on Young People.Health promotion practice · 2024Pooled it
- Opportunities and pitfalls of social media research in rare genetic diseases: a systematic review.Genetics in medicine : official journal of the American College of Medical Genetics · 2021Pooled it
- Survey Fatigue During the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Analysis of Neurosurgery Survey Response Rates.Frontiers in surgery · 2021Pooled it
- Participatory Interventions for Sexual Health Promotion for Adolescents and Young Adults on the Internet: Systematic Review.Journal of medical Internet research · 2020Pooled it
- How Behavior Change Strategies are Used to Design Digital Interventions to Improve Medication Adherence and Blood Pressure Among Patients With Hypertension: Systematic Review.Journal of medical Internet research · 2020Pooled it
- Reddit for research recruitment? Social media as a novel clinical trial recruitment tool for adolescent and young adult (AYA) cancer survivors.Journal of cancer survivorship : research and practice · 2026Trial
- Effective and cost-effective strategies for recruiting rural adults into a civic engagement and health behavior change research study.BMC public health · 2026Trial
- Can targeted recruitment methods affect male participation in weight loss interventions and trials?Annals of behavioral medicine : a publication of the Society of Behavioral Medicine · 2026Trial
- Supporting community translation of lung cancer screening: A web-based decision aid to support informed decision making.Translational behavioral medicine · 2025Trial
- Randomised experimental evaluation of a social media campaign to promote COVID-19 vaccination in Nigeria.Journal of global health · 2024Trial
- Access to and Use of Internet and Social Media by Low-Morbidity Stroke Survivors Participating in a National Web-Based Secondary Stroke Prevention Trial: Cross-sectional Survey.Journal of medical Internet research · 2022Trial
- Integrating social media inspired features into a personalized normative feedback intervention combats social media-based alcohol influence.Drug and alcohol dependence · 2021Trial
- Feasibility and Efficacy of the "FUNPALs Playgroup" Intervention to Improve Toddler Dietary and Activity Behaviors: A Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Trial
- Lessons Learned from Replicating a Randomized Control Trial Evaluation of an App-Based Sexual Health Program.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Trial
- Trial
- Changes in self-esteem, body dissatisfaction, and body appreciation during face-to-face and digital supervised physical activity interventions in women with obesity: A dual-study investigation.Obesity pillars · 2026Article
- A Comparison of Participant Demographics Across Co-Designed Recruitment Methods to Two Student Mental Health Trials: Cross-Sectional Observational Study.JMIR formative research · 2026Observational
- Leveraging Social Media to Achieve Population-Level Reach of Lung Cancer Screening-Eligible Individuals: A RE-AIM Framework Perspective.Journal of medical Internet research · 2026Article
- Striking a Balance: Mitigating Fraud While Ensuring Equity in Online Qualitative Research Recruitment.Journal of medical Internet research · 2025Article
61 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
As the popularity and diversity of social media platforms increases so does their utility for health research. Using social media for recruitment into clinical studies and/or delivering health behavior interventions may increase reach to a broader audience. However, evidence supporting the efficacy of these approaches is limited, and key questions remain with respect to optimal benchmarks, intervention development and methodology, participant engagement, informed consent, privacy, and data management. Little methodological guidance is available to researchers interested in using social media for health research. In this Tutorial, we summarize the content of the 2017 Society for Behavioral Medicine Pre-Conference Course entitled 'Using Social Media for Research,' at which the authors presented their experiences with methodological and ethical issues relating to social media-enabled research recruitment and intervention delivery. We identify common pitfalls and provide recommendations for recruitment and intervention via social media. We also discuss the ethical and responsible conduct of research using social media for each of these purposes.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.