Using Facebook Advertisements for Women’s Health Research: Methodology and Outcomes of an Observational Study

Background Recruitment of diverse populations for health research studies remains a challenge. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated these challenges by limiting in-person recruitment efforts and placing additional demands on potential participants. Social media, through the use of Facebook advertisements, has the potential to address recruitment challenges. However, existing reports are inconsistent with regard to the success of this strategy. Additionally, limited information is available about processes that can be used to increase the diversity of study participants. Objective A Qualtrics survey was fielded to ascertain women’s knowledge of and health care experiences related to breast density. This paper describes the process of using Facebook advertisements for recruitment and the effectiveness of various advertisement strategies. Methods Facebook advertisements were placed in 2 rounds between June and July 2020. During round 1, multiple combinations of headlines and interest terms were tested to determine the most cost-effective advertisement. The best performing advertisement was used in round 2 in combination with various strategies to enhance the diversity of the survey sample. Advertisement performance, cost, and survey respondent data were collected and examined. Results In round 1, a total of 45 advertisements with 5 different headlines were placed, and the average cost per link click for each headline ranged from US $0.12 to US $0.79. Of the 164 women recruited in round 1, in total 91.62% were eligible to complete the survey. Advertisements used during recruitment in round 2 resulted in an average cost per link click of US $0.11. During the second round, 478 women attempted the survey, and 87.44% were eligible to participate. The majority of survey respondents were White (80.41%), over the age of 55 years (63.94%), and highly educated (63.71%). Conclusions Facebook advertisements can be used to recruit respondents for health research quickly, but this strategy may yield participants who are less racially diverse, more educated, and older than the general population. Researchers should consider recruiting participants through other methods in addition to creating Facebook advertisements targeting underrepresented populations.

Kualitas SDM, Persepsi Pelaku UMKM, Pemahaman UMKM, Sosialisasi SAK EMKM Terhadap Implementasi SAK EMKM

The purpose of this study was to assess the effect of implementing SAK EMKM for SMEs through four indicators of reflection, namely the quality of human resources as measured by five indicators. Small business perception is measured by seven reflex indicators. MSME understanding is measured by five specific indicators. Socialization of SAK EMKM is measured using five reflection indicators. This type of research is a descriptive quantitative research. The population in this study was 11,746 MSMEs in the food and beverage sector in the city of Tangerang. The survey sample was 100 respondents from MSME actors, obtained using practical or random sampling methods. The data analysis used, with SmartPLS software version 3.2.1, is based on a model that you can think of as an outer model, and an inner model, with hypothesis testing. This study found that the quality of human resources affected the implementation of SAK EMKM, the perception of SAK EMKM actors did not affect the implementation of SAK EMKM, the understanding of SMEs affected the implementation of SAK EMKM, and SAK EMKM socialization did not affect SAK EMKM.

University Governance in the context of Vietnam’s Educational Innovation

University governance brings about the success of a university. Renovation of management in the direction of university governance will exert important influences to improve the training quality of the higher education system. The article presents the theoretical basis and research process related to university governance activities to promote education innovation. The study combined qualitative and quantitative research; the survey sample was 120 people, of which 44 were managers and 76 were lecturers and staff working at Saigon University. The article proposes university governance related to such elements as planning for the development of resources in the university, policy mechanisms, organization and leadership, and monitoring. The article clarifies the relationship between the components of university governance activities in the direction of a system approach to help universities manage their activities towards sustainable university governance.

Building Educational Environment in the Child-Centered Perspective: A Survey in Preschools in Thai Nguyen City, Thai Nguyen Province, Vietnam

Building an educational environment at a preschool has a direct influence on the quality of children's education, shaping its own values in the organizational culture of each school. This study aims to clarify what work needs to be done to build an educational environment from a child-centered point of view? What are the requirements for preschool teachers and principals? How have preschools in Thai Nguyen city, Thai Nguyen province, Vietnam built an educational environment? Theoretical research methods are used to have a theoretical model of building an educational environment from a child-centered point of view. The survey method by questionnaire combined with observation and unstructured interviews was used with a survey sample of 10 managers and 50 teachers to find out the above situation in preschools in Thai Nguyen city, Thai Nguyen province, Vietnam. Building an educational environment should pay attention to the physical environment in the classroom and outside the classroom, the psychosocial environment, all of which must be based on the needs of the child and create the most favorable conditions for the child to develop. The survey shows that preschools in Thai Nguyen city perform well in the contents with an overall GPA of 3.51/4.0 and are ready to welcome children back to school after more than 3 months of suspension because of the covid epidemic and summer vacation.

COVID-19 Vaccine Intentions Within the Medicare Population

COVID-19 vaccine intentions by older adults reflect individual care seeking behavior and medical system trust and broader systemic cultural shifts related to vaccine hesitancy. The purpose of this paper is to examine the October wave of the rapid response panel survey fielded by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to track and monitor the effects of the pandemic within the Medicare population. With a sample size of 9686 Medicare beneficiaries, the calculated statistics use replicate weights to adjust for the complex survey sample design and balanced repeated replication using Fay’s adjustment of 0.3 for variance estimation. When asked about the likelihood of getting the COVID-19 vaccine if one were available, 58 percent of the Medicare population definitely or probably intended to get the vaccine, 16 percent expressed they would probably or definitely not, and 26 percent were not sure. Black or Hispanic Medicare beneficiaries were significantly more likely to express they would probably not or definitely not get the vaccine than White, non-Hispanic Medicare beneficiaries. Distrust of what government says about the vaccine and concern about the safety or side effects were the most common reasons for not intending to get the vaccine. Those expressing intentions to not get the COVID-19 vaccine in the October 2020 survey wave were more likely to lack access to the internet, which is a potential systematic barrier if they changed their intentions following the FDA approvals of the COVID-19 vaccines and more information became available in the winter and spring of 2021.

Zachrisson et al 2021 ECEC Achievement

In this study, we estimate the effects of the scale-up of Norway’s universal ECEC program — expanding access to 1- and 2-year olds starting in the early 2000s—on standardized math and achievement tests in 5th grade (age 10) using a population-based survey sample (Norwegian Mother, Father, and Child Cohort Study, MoBa, n = 102,352), linked with national administrative records of child achievement test scores. These data support using fixed-effects regressions and instrumental variable regressions to make inferences about the causal impact of ECEC scale-up on middle childhood achievement. We find the scale-up of ECEC starting in the second year of life improved test scores, especially for children from families with low levels of parental education, thereby reducing the achievement gap between children ofparents with the highest and lowest education by up to 50%.

On the Use of Gradient Boosting Methods to Improve the Estimation with Data Obtained with Self-Selection Procedures

In the last years, web surveys have established themselves as one of the main methods in empirical research. However, the effect of coverage and selection bias in such surveys has undercut their utility for statistical inference in finite populations. To compensate for these biases, researchers have employed a variety of statistical techniques to adjust nonprobability samples so that they more closely match the population. In this study, we test the potential of the XGBoost algorithm in the most important methods for estimation that integrate data from a probability survey and a nonprobability survey. At the same time, a comparison is made of the effectiveness of these methods for the elimination of biases. The results show that the four proposed estimators based on gradient boosting frameworks can improve survey representativity with respect to other classic prediction methods. The proposed methodology is also used to analyze a real nonprobability survey sample on the social effects of COVID-19.

Working and learning from home during COVID-19: International experiences among social work educators and students

This research seeks to explore the experiences of social work educators and students working and learning from home. The findings, from an international survey sample of 166 educators and students, showed that the respondents faced issues with private and personal boundaries, felt the impact of working and learning from home on both physical and emotional levels, and experienced challenges to what was expected of them. The respondents primarily used two types of coping mechanisms to manage these challenges. These findings contribute to a broader discussion of the impact of working and learning from home and are relevant for education administrators responsible for their employees’ and students’ well-being.

The COVID States Project #69: Student Attitudes About University COVID-19 Policies

With the return of students to U.S. colleges and universities this September, more than 1,000 institutions of higher education have implemented COVID-19 vaccine mandates to keep COVID-19 cases low. The majority of students have complied with these mandates, and according to our recent survey data, nearly three-fourths of university students report having received at least one COVID-19 vaccine (Figure 1). Also according to our data, university students in the U.S. are getting vaccinated at around the same rate as the full survey sample. University students therefore may have slightly higher vaccination rates than others in their age group; according to our survey data, 67% of Americans aged 18-24 have received at least one vaccine.However, the contentiousness of COVID-19 vaccine mandates on university campuses echoes the broader societal divide on this issue. Many campuses have struggled with COVID-19 vaccine policy implementation and exemption requests, with some students even withdrawing in protest of the vaccine mandates.Given this trend, we take a closer look at university mandates on college campuses, including whether students can accurately say whether their institutions have COVID-19 vaccine policies.1 We also examine college students’ attitudes toward mandates on campus and in general, as well as student approval of their university administration’s handling of COVID-19 vaccination.

Consumer Sustainable Shopping Practices for Small Business during COVID-19

The purpose of this study was to understand the factors that attract consumers to small businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic to assist with small businesses. Factors of interest included emotional (positive and negative) and cognitive experiences (resilience, optimism) during the pandemic and demographic characteristics (gender, generation, education, income, and employment status). Using a convenience survey sample in U.S. (N = 315), this study found that positive and negative emotions, active resilience, and demographic characteristics (generation, education, income, and employment status) can explain consumer shopping frequency and number of services used with small businesses during a pandemic. Small businesses may seek to trigger active resilience and emotions (negative and positive) in their marketing/advertising avenues to attract consumers’ sustainable consumption practices and may consider pivoting to attract particular consumer segments that are more likely to lend favorable actions toward sustainable consumption.