An invitation to use craigslist ads to recruit respondents from stigmatized groups for qualitative interviews

Abstract

Craigslist.org is a website devoted to classified advertisements as well as discussion forums with locations in more than 700 sites in 70 countries. At an estimated 30 billion page views per month and more than 50 million new classified ads posted monthly, craigslist ads have the ability to reach a wide audience. Although wildly popular, no studies to date have investigated the use of craigslist ads for qualitative research study recruitment. In this research note, I offer my own experiences from 2011 to 2012 using craigslist ads (N = 77) to recruit obese respondents (N = 38) for qualitative interviews in one major metro area in the southern United States. I also discuss some advantages and limitations of using craigslist as a recruitment tool. Overall, I invite social science researchers to consider craigslist as an innovative tool to recruit respondents for qualitative research.