ArticleThe American journal of bioethics : AJOB2019
Ethical and Regulatory Considerations for Using Social Media Platforms to Locate and Track Research Participants.
Article in The American journal of bioethics : AJOB, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers, 2 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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Non-empirical methods for ethics research on digital technologies in medicine, health care and public health: a systematic journal review.Medicine, health care, and philosophy · 2024Pooled it
- Trends in Clinical Information Systems Research in 2019.Yearbook of medical informatics · 2020Pooled it
- Trial
- Implementing Social Media Strategies in Community-Partnered HIV Research: Practical Considerations From 3 Ongoing Studies.JMIR public health and surveillance · 2025Article
- Acceptability and satisfaction of a mindfulness-based healthy eating and stress management program targeting economically marginalized families in a pilot trial.Journal of pediatric psychology · 2025Article
- Community-Sourced Reporting of Mortalities in Angelman Syndrome (1979-2022).American journal of medical genetics. Part A · 2025Article
- Ethics statements in Rheumatology journals: present practices and future directions.Rheumatology international · 2024Article
- Toward Fairness, Accountability, Transparency, and Ethics in AI for Social Media and Health Care: Scoping Review.JMIR medical informatics · 2024Article
- Standards for clinical trials for treating TB.The international journal of tuberculosis and lung disease : the official journal of the International Union against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease · 2023Article
- Investigator initiated research in times of COVID-19: Let's go digital!Neurogastroenterology and motility · 2020Article
- [The Early Mobilization Network].Medizinische Klinik, Intensivmedizin und Notfallmedizin · 2020Review
- A comparative effectiveness trial of an information technology enhanced peer-integrated collaborative care intervention versus enhanced usual care for US trauma care systems: Clinical study protocol.Contemporary clinical trials · 2020Article
- Ethics of Recruiting Research Subjects Through Social Media.The American journal of bioethics : AJOB · 2019Article
- Practical social media recommendations for dementia prevention researchers.Alzheimer's & dementia (New York, N. Y.)Article
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Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
Abstract
As social media becomes increasingly popular, human subjects researchers are able to use these platforms to locate, track, and communicate with study participants, thereby increasing participant retention and the generalizability and validity of research. The use of social media; however, raises novel ethical and regulatory issues that have received limited attention in the literature and federal regulations. We review research ethics and regulations and outline the implications for maintaining participant privacy, respecting participant autonomy, and promoting researcher transparency when using social media to locate and track participants. We offer a rubric that can be used in future studies to determine ethical and regulation-consistent use of social media platforms and illustrate the rubric using our study team's experience with Facebook. We also offer recommendations for both researchers and institutional review boards that emphasize the importance of well-described procedures for social media use as part of informed consent.
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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.