Principal Findings
communicable disease, MSM
COMMUNICABLE DISEASE, RECRUITMENT
This study assessed the use of HIV e-reports as a tool for recruiting MSM participants for an HIV testing study via social networks. Similar to offline recruitment, MSM egos forwarded their e-reports to more MSM peers (thus, to larger active social networks) and were thus more likely to recruit alters for the study. However, unlike offline recruitment, the success and sustainability of online recruitment were found to depend on high levels of familiarity and awareness among MSM, with the “ChaBei” tool used for delivering e-reports to their network associates. Remarkably, the exchangeable e-report associated with alter’s transformation into offline ego means that it might promote MSM to test HIV offline to get their own e-report for exchange with others. This indicates that promoting awareness and increasing recognition of online communicable disease reporting tools are crucial for effectively reaching and recruiting high-risk individuals.This study recruited sufficient eligible alters (n=1162) from the distribution of HIV e-reports in online social networks, although the recruitment was conducted over 2 years during the COVID-19 pandemic. Compared with traditional recruitment methods in previous studies, the recruitment methods in this study showed improved recruitment efficiency. For example, Rhodes et al [Egos in the regular HIV e-reports group had a higher probability of successful recruitment on alters’ online enrollment, which may be attributed to the increased accessibility of others’ test results in the regular HIV e-report group. After the regular e-reports were forwarded, report receivers could directly see the test results [Egos who forwarded e-reports to more MSM recruited more alters and more frequently viewed their own and others’ e-reports. The number of times e-reports were forwarded showed a strong positive association with the size of the social network, which is consistent with previous studies that used social networks for participant recruitment [Our recruitment strategy demonstrated an effective and sustainable recruitment mechanism. e-Reports were forwarded many times in social networks in the first, second, and third waves, creating multiple recruitment waves (