JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected people's lives beyond severe and long-term physical health symptoms. Social distancing and quarantine have led to adverse mental health outcomes. In addition, COVID-induced economic setbacks have likely exacerbated the psychological distress affecting broader aspects of physical and mental well-being. Remote digital health studies can provide information about the pandemic's socioeconomic, mental, and physical impact. COVIDsmart was a collaborative effort to deploy a complex digital health research study to understand the impact of the pandemic on diverse populations. Here we describe how digital tools were used to capture the effects of the pandemic on the overall wellbeing of diverse communities across large geographical areas within the state of Virginia.

Objective:

The objective of this paper is to describe the digital recruitment strategies and data collection tools applied in the COVIDsmart study and share preliminary study results.

Methods:

COVIDsmart conducted digital recruitment, eConsent, and survey collection through a HIPAA compliant digital health platform. This is alternative to traditional in-person recruitment and onboarding method used for studies. Participants in Virginia were actively recruited over three months utilizing widespread digital marketing strategies. Six months of data were collected remotely on participant demographics, COVID-19 clinical parameters, health perceptions, mental and physical health, resilience, vaccination status, education/work functioning, social/family functioning, and economic impact. Data were collected using validated questionnaires or surveys reviewed by an expert panel that were completed in a cyclical fashion. To retain high level of engagement throughout the study, participants were incentivized to stay enrolled and complete more surveys to further their chances of receiving monthly gift card drawing and/or one of multiple grand prizes.

Results:

Virtual recruitment demonstrated relatively high rates of interest in Virginia (N=3,737), and 782 have consented to participate in the study (21.1%). The most successful recruitment technique was the effective use of newsletters/emails (41.4%). The primary reason for contributing as a study participant was advancing research (79.9%), followed by the need to give back to their community (64.8%). Incentives only reported as a reason among 21% of the consented participants. Overall, the primary reason for contributing as a study participant was attributed to altruism at 88.6%.

Conclusions:

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the need for digital transformation in research. COVIDsmart is a statewide prospective cohort to study the impact of COVID-19 on Virginians' social, physical, and mental health. The study design, project management, and collaborative efforts across multi-disciplinary groups led to the development of effective digital recruitment, enrollment, and data collection strategies to evaluate the pandemic effects on a large, diverse population. These findings may inform effective recruitment techniques across diverse communities and participants' interest in remote digital health studies.