Recruitment
MAY, RECRUITMENT, RECRUITMENT
Recruitment took place from Summer 2019 through Fall 2020 except for a brief period from March to May of 2020 when the study was paused due to the initial COVID-19 outbreak in the USA. Although grocery stores were designated an essential service and most remained open during US lockdowns, the research team had concerns over how food shortages, limited store hours and store closures may impact the grocery purchasing experience during this time. Eleven participants (17 %) were recruited and completed all study procedures in early 2020, and the remaining 54 (83 %) were enrolled after recruitment started again in May 2020.Forty-six percentage of participants were recruited through social media advertisements. Social media advertisements were posted on Facebook once per month from June–October of 2020 and cost $360 USD total, with promotional costs ranging from $70 to $120 per post depending on level of engagement. Posts were also shared, but not promoted monetarily, through our laboratory’s Twitter account. Twenty-three percentage of participants were recruited through listservs or websites, including advertisements sent to email lists maintained by our division, the Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute Buffalo Research Registry, the university’s i2b2 listserv