Leach Liana S, Bennetts Shannon K, Giallo Rebecca, Cooklin Amanda R
National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, Research School of Population Health, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.
Judith Lumley Centre, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
Child Care Health Dev. 2019 Nov;45(6):871-876. doi: 10.1111/cch.12698. Epub 2019 Jul 22.
Fathers are underrepresented in parenting and child health research. Given there is a strong link between fathers' parenting behaviour and children's well-being, there is a need to find ways to engage fathers more consistently. The current short report provides information and learnings about recruiting fathers online using social media. Results are drawn from an Australian study that aimed to recruit roughly equal numbers of mothers and fathers to participate in a survey about employment, parenting, and health, using online advertising.
First, a series of five Facebook advertising campaigns were run, aimed at "parents" generally (i.e., gender-neutral). A lack of recruited fathers prompted a second series of six Facebook campaigns aimed solely at fathers. All campaigns targeted employed adult parents of children (≤18 years) in Australia using Facebook's "Adverts Manager."
The 11 campaigns recruited a total of 1,468 fathers. The vast majority of these fathers were recruited using the advertisements specifically aimed at fathers (n = 1,441). Gender-neutral campaigns inviting and selecting "parents" to participate in the study overwhelmingly yielded samples of mothers. Similarly, advertisements inviting both "mums and dads" resulted in very low recruitment of fathers.
The extremely low numbers of fathers recruited using the gender-neutral "parent-focused" campaigns was unexpected. Potential reasons for this include low engagement with gender-neutral parenting terms, and/or that mothers were disproportionally exposed to the Facebook advertisements. These learnings suggest that father-focused recruitment is required to target and engage fathers in parenting research and services.
在育儿和儿童健康研究中，父亲的参与度不足。鉴于父亲的育儿行为与孩子的幸福之间存在紧密联系，有必要找到让父亲更持续参与的方法。本简短报告提供了有关利用社交媒体在网上招募父亲的信息和经验教训。结果来自一项澳大利亚研究，该研究旨在通过在线广告招募大致相等数量的母亲和父亲参与一项关于就业、育儿和健康的调查。
首先，开展了一系列五次脸书广告活动，总体目标是“父母”（即不分性别）。招募到的父亲数量不足促使开展了第二系列六次脸书活动，专门针对父亲。所有活动都使用脸书的“广告管理工具”，目标是澳大利亚有工作的18岁及以下孩子的成年父母。
这11次活动共招募了1468名父亲。这些父亲绝大多数是通过专门针对父亲的广告招募到的（n = 1441）。邀请并选择“父母”参与研究的不分性别的活动绝大多数得到的是母亲样本。同样，邀请“妈妈和爸爸”的广告导致招募到的父亲数量非常少。
使用不分性别的“以父母为重点”活动招募到的父亲数量极低，这出乎意料。其潜在原因包括对不分性别的育儿术语参与度低，和/或母亲过多地接触到脸书广告。这些经验教训表明，需要以父亲为重点进行招募，以便在育儿研究和服务中针对并吸引父亲参与。
