Tulsiani Shreya, Ichimiya Megumi, Gerard Raquel, Mills Sarah, Bingenheimer Jeffrey B, Hair Elizabeth C, Vallone Donna, Evans W Douglas
Schroeder Institute, Truth Initiative, Washington, DC, United States.
Department of Prevention and Community Health, Milken Institute School of Public Health, The George Washington University, Washington, DC, United States.
JMIR Form Res. 2022 Aug 29;6(8):e37856. doi: 10.2196/37856.
Mass media campaigns for preventive health messaging have been shown to be effective through years of research. However, few studies have assessed the effectiveness of campaigns on digital media, which is currently how youths and young adults are primarily consuming media. In particular, a platform that can accurately assess exposure to digital messaging in a real-life setting has yet to be developed.
This study examines the feasibility of a unique survey platform, Virtual Lab, to conduct a study on exposure to a media campaign within Facebook using a chatbot-style survey administration technique.
Virtual Lab is a survey platform that was used to recruit and survey participants within Facebook and Facebook Messenger, respectively. We created a Facebook business account with 2 Facebook pages: one for recruitment and disseminating the survey and the other one for serving the target advertisements. Pre- and postexposure surveys were administered via Facebook Messenger using a chatbot-style questionnaire 1 week apart. During this time, the target advertisements were shown to participants who completed the pre-exposure survey. The total time from recruitment to completion of the postexposure survey was 13 days, and incentive costs were US $10 per participant. Survey data were compared between those who completed both pre- and postexposure surveys and those who only completed the pre-exposure survey; that is, those who were lost to follow-up. The demographics of the complete cases were also compared to the US census data.
A total of 375 Facebook users aged between 18 and 24 years met eligibility requirements and consented to the study, which consisted of complete cases (n=234) and participants lost to follow-up (n=141). A few differences between complete cases and participants lost to follow-up were observed. Regarding gender, complete cases comprised 40.2% males and 59.4% females, and among participants lost to follow-up, 44.0% were male and 50.4% were female (P=.003). Differences were also observed for e-cigarette use status, where a greater number of current users and fewer past and never users were lost to follow-up than complete cases (P=.01).
The use of Virtual Lab yielded a diverse sample quickly and cost-effectively. Demographic characteristics of participants who completed the study and those who were lost to follow-up were similar, indicating that no biases were caused by the platform during recruitment or testing. This study suggests the feasibility of the Virtual Lab survey platform for studies of media campaign exposure within Facebook. This platform can advance health campaign research by providing more accurate data to inform digital messaging.
多年的研究表明，大众媒体开展的预防性健康宣传活动是有效的。然而，很少有研究评估数字媒体上宣传活动的效果，而数字媒体是目前青少年和青年群体获取媒体信息的主要途径。特别是，一个能够在现实环境中准确评估数字信息曝光度的平台尚未开发出来。
本研究探讨一种独特的调查平台——虚拟实验室（Virtual Lab），利用聊天机器人式调查管理技术，对脸书（Facebook）上媒体宣传活动的曝光情况进行研究的可行性。
虚拟实验室是一个调查平台，分别用于在脸书和脸书信使（Facebook Messenger）上招募和调查参与者。我们创建了一个脸书商业账户，设有两个脸书页面：一个用于招募和发布调查问卷，另一个用于投放目标广告。在相隔1周的时间里，通过脸书信使使用聊天机器人式问卷进行暴露前和暴露后调查。在此期间，目标广告展示给完成暴露前调查的参与者。从招募到完成暴露后调查的总时长为13天，每位参与者的激励成本为10美元。对完成暴露前和暴露后调查者与仅完成暴露前调查者（即失访者）的调查数据进行比较。还将完整病例的人口统计学特征与美国人口普查数据进行了比较。
共有375名年龄在18至24岁之间的脸书用户符合资格要求并同意参与研究，其中包括完整病例（n = 234）和失访参与者（n = 141）。观察到完整病例与失访参与者之间存在一些差异。在性别方面，完整病例中男性占40.2%，女性占59.4%；在失访参与者中，男性占44.0%，女性占50.4%（P = 0.003）。在电子烟使用状况方面也观察到差异，与完整病例相比，失访的当前使用者更多，过去使用者和从未使用者更少（P = 0.01）。
使用虚拟实验室能够快速且经济高效地获得多样化样本。完成研究的参与者与失访者的人口统计学特征相似，这表明该平台在招募或测试过程中未造成偏差。本研究表明虚拟实验室调查平台可用于研究脸书上的媒体宣传活动曝光情况。该平台可为数字信息提供更准确的数据，从而推动健康宣传研究。
