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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Public Health
Sec. Infectious Diseases: Epidemiology and Prevention
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1385426
This article is part of the Research Topic Optimising Participant Recruitment in Digital Health Research View all 3 articles

Impact of Recruitment Strategies on Individual Participation Practices in the Canadian National Vaccine Safety Network: Prospective Cohort Study

Provisionally accepted
Phyumar Soe Phyumar Soe 1,2Manish Sadarangani Manish Sadarangani 2Monika Naus Monika Naus 1Matthew P. Muller Matthew P. Muller 3Otto G. Vanderkooi Otto G. Vanderkooi 4James D. Kellner James D. Kellner 4Karina A. Top Karina A. Top 5Hubert Wong Hubert Wong 1Jennifer E. Isenor Jennifer E. Isenor 5Kimberly Marty Kimberly Marty 2Gaston De Serres Gaston De Serres 6Louis Valiquette Louis Valiquette 7Allison Mcgeer Allison Mcgeer 8Julie A. Bettinger Julie A. Bettinger 2*
  • 1 University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
  • 2 Vaccine Evaluation Center, BC Children's Hospital Research Institute, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
  • 3 Unity Health Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
  • 4 University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
  • 5 Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
  • 6 Centre hospitalier de l'Université Laval, Québec, Quebec, Canada
  • 7 Université de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada
  • 8 University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Background: The Canadian National Vaccine Safety (CANVAS) network conducted a multi-center, prospective vaccine safety study to collect safety data after dose 1 and 2 of COVID-19 vaccines and follow up safety information seven months after dose 1. Objective: This study aimed to describe and evaluate the recruitment methods used by CANVAS and the retention of participants by each modality. Methods: CANVAS deployed a multi-pronged recruitment approach to reach a larger sample, without in-person recruitment. Three primary recruitment strategies were used: passive recruitment, technology-assisted electronic invitation through the vaccine booking system (auto-invitation), or auto-registration through the vaccine registries (auto-enrollment). Results: Between December 2020 and April 2022, approximately 1.3 million vaccinated adults either self-enrolled or were auto-enrolled in CANVAS, representing about 5% of the vaccinated adult Canadian population. Approximately one million participants were auto-enrolled, three hundred thousand were recruited by auto-invitation, and five thousand via passive recruitment. Overall survey completion rates for dose 1, dose 2 and the 7-month follow-up surveys were 51.7% (681,198 of 1,314,468), 54.3% (369,552 of 681,198), and 66.4% (452,076 of 681,198), respectively. Completion rates were lower among auto-enrolled participants compared to passively recruited or auto-invited participants who self-enrolled. However, auto-enrolled samples were much larger, which offset the lower completion rates. Conclusions: Our data suggest that auto-enrollment provided an opportunity to reach and retain a larger number of individuals in the study compared to other recruitment modalities.

    Keywords: COVID-19 vaccines, technology-assisted active recruitment, auto-invitation, autoenrollment, vaccine safety

    Received: 12 Mar 2024; Accepted: 29 Jul 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Soe, Sadarangani, Naus, Muller, Vanderkooi, Kellner, Top, Wong, Isenor, Marty, De Serres, Valiquette, Mcgeer and Bettinger. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Julie A. Bettinger, Vaccine Evaluation Center, BC Children's Hospital Research Institute, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.