JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

While often overlooked in health research, the incorporation of youth voices into policies and programs affecting them can create more engaging, sustainable, and effective interventions to improve the health of young people. With the growing use of technology in qualitative data collection, there is an opportunity to gather rich and varied perspectives from diverse youth across the US and to strengthen our understanding of young people’s beliefs and experiences that impact their health and well-being. However, large-scale qualitative datasets can be difficult to manage using traditional qualitative methods, and there is limited guidance on strategies for large-scale qualitative research.

Objective:

The purpose of this study is to describe the strategies that MyVoice, a nationwide text message poll of youth, has implemented to collect and analyze a large corpus of qualitative text message data over eight years, including social media recruitment, data management and organization, and qualitative analysis techniques. In addition, we present successes and challenges evidenced by participation and dissemination results from text message polls collected since 2016 in light of the changing landscape of mobile technology and social media.

Methods:

MyVoice participants are 14-24-year-olds across the US, recruited primarily through targeted social media ads. Demographics are collected upon enrollment and at the start of each 12-week phase. Weekly surveys that include 4-5 primarily open-ended questions are developed by faculty members and trainees ranging from high school to postgraduate levels. Analysis most often relies on traditional qualitative approaches (i.e., manual coding) and leverages content or thematic analysis to summarize patterns and key findings within each dataset.

Results:

Survey topics have included nutrition, social media use, reproductive health and justice, tobacco, and many other relevant public health and policy topics. To-date, a diverse sample of 3,180 adolescents and young adults from all 50 states have participated in MyVoice. On average, participants remain engaged for 3.6 (1-11) phases (~18 months) and respond to 77.8% (SD = 8.3) of survey questions. During the same period, the MyVoice team has included 74 in-house trainees and over 60 high school students through a research training program. Findings have been presented at local and national conferences, published as white papers and journal articles, covered by podcasts and lay media, and used to inform state-level policy changes.

Conclusions:

These large-scale qualitative strategies may benefit other researchers analyzing large volumes of qualitative data and/or short text segments, including text messages, social media posts, medical notes, and open-ended survey questions, among others.