The rise of digital data collection during the COVID-19 pandemic made qualitative research more flexible and accessible—but it also opened the door to a new challenge confronting researchers: imposter participants. While platforms like Zoom, Google Meet, and Skype have become the new norm for researchers to engage with study participants, they have also given rise to imposter participants who falsify their identities or exaggerate their experiences to gain entry into paid studies.
A new study by the University of Minnesota School of Public Health (SPH) published in Qualitative Health Research highlights the risks that imposter participants pose, and offers recommendations and strategies for detecting and preventing imposter participants from impacting the validity and trustworthiness of qualitative research.
The study draws from two case studies that uncovered fraudulent participants. In the first, Hamdi Abdi, a PhD graduate of the Health Services Research, Policy and Administration (HSRPA) doctoral program, was conducting her dissertation research related to the birthing experiences of Black women, and she was recruiting Black women who had experienced stillbirth. In the second, a postdoctoral researcher, Kristina Medero, was working with a team, including HSRPA doctoral student CeRon Ford, to recruit Black adolescents in the Twin Cities for a study on youth mental health. Using their experiences, the authors identified red flags across three phases of the research process—recruitment, consent, and data collection. Red flags identified by SPH researchers included:
- Suspicious email patterns during the recruitment phase. Fragmented sentences, lack of subject lines, time stamps at odd hours, content repeated from recruitment flyers, and responses focused solely on compensation.
- Unusual communications during the consent process. Potential study participants who provided contact numbers that could not receive incoming calls, people who had area codes outside the study’s geographic region, experienced delays in responding to basic questions about their local area, or who indicated that they did not have a working camera when asked to appear on-screen.
- Suspicious actions during the data collection phase. When using a laptop camera, background light may not match the time of day in the study region, participants may repeat what other participants have said, or may be unable to answer specific questions about the topic.
Based on these red flags, SPH researchers developed a set of recommendations for researchers, institutions, review boards, and publishers to help protect against imposter participants. The study recommends stronger participant screening practices, including eligibility surveys with metadata collection, verbal or video check-ins prior to participation, clear protocols for addressing questionable data, and structuring incentives differently—such as providing them only after eligibility is confirmed. Beyond individual research teams, the study calls for institutional review boards, publishers, and academic programs to address the issue through training and transparent reporting.
“Imposter participants threaten the trustworthiness of qualitative research,” said Kristina Medero, SPH researcher and lead author. “This study equips researchers with practical strategies to protect their work while still centering the human connections that are essential to academic research. As qualitative research continues to rely on digital tools, protecting against imposters supports data integrity and upholds trust and equity in public health research.”
Co-authors of the study were Hamdi Abdi, CeRon Ford, and SPH Professor Sarah Gollust.
