Recruiting and motivating black subjects to complete a lengthy survey in a large cohort study: an exploration of different strategies

BMC Medical Research Methodology

Gary Fraser¹  Susanne B Montgomery³  Hannelore Bennett¹  Sonja Hall¹  Terry Butler¹  Patti Herring² 

[1] School of Public Health, Biostatistics & Epidemiology, Loma Linda University, 24951 North Circle Dr, NH 2005, Loma Linda, CA 92350, USA;School of Public Health, Loma Linda University, 1709 Nichol Hall, Loma Linda, CA 92350, USA;Behavioral Health Institute, Loma Linda University, 1686 Barton Rd, Loma Linda, CA 92373, USA

关键词: Sub-studies;    Incentives;    Multiple strategies;    Revisit;    Re-promotion;    Promotion;    Recruitment;    Enrollment;    African American;    Black;   

Others  :  866368
DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2288-14-46

 received in 2013-07-16, accepted in 2014-03-24,  发布年份 2014

【 摘 要 】

Background

The effectiveness of multiple innovative recruitment strategies for enrolling Black/African American participants to the Adventist Health Study-2 (AHS-2) is described. The study’s focus is diet and breast, prostate and colon cancer.

Methods

Promotions centered on trust, relationship building and incentives for increasing enrollment and questionnaire return rate. Of the sub-studies described, one had a randomized control group, and the others, informal controls. The subjects are from all states of the U.S. and some provinces of Canada. The offer of a Black art piece, follow-up calls, a competitive tournament as well as other strategies accounted for nearly 3,000 additional returns even though they were often used in small subsets.

Results

Flexibility and multiple strategies proved advantageous in gaining the cooperation of Blacks, who are usually reluctant to participate in research studies.

Conclusions

Lessons learned during initial enrollment should help us retain our final Black cohort of 26,000, and obtain new information when required.

【 授权许可】

   
2014 Herring et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

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