Special populations recruitment for the Women's Health Initiative: successes and limitations

EFFECTIVE RECRUITMENT AND RETENTION OF MINORITY RESEARCH PARTICIPANTS

Our ability, as leaders in public health scholarship and practice, to achieve and measure progress in addressing racial/ethnic disparities in health status and health care is severely constrained by low levels of participation of racial/ethnic minority populations in health-related research. Confining our review to those minority groups federally defined as underrepresented (African Americans/blacks, Latinos/Hispanics, and Native Americans/American Indians), we identified 95 studies published between January 1999 and April 2005 describing methods of increasing minority enrollment and retention in research studies, more than three times the average annual output of scholarly work in this area during the prior 15-year period. Ten themes emerged from the 75 studies that were primarily descriptive. The remaining 20 studies, which directly analyzed the efficacy or effectiveness of recruitment/retention strategies, were examined in detail and provided useful insights related to four of the ten factors: sampling approach/identification of targeted participants, community involvement/nature and timing of contact with prospective participants, incentives and logistical issues, and cultural adaptations. We then characterized the current state of this literature, discussing implications for future research needs and directions.

Identifying, Recruiting, and Enrolling Adolescent Survivors of Childhood Cancer into a Randomized Controlled Trial of Health Promotion: Preliminary Experiences in the Survivor Health and Resilience Education (SHARE) Program

OBJECTIVE

To report on the identification, recruitment, and enrollment of adolescent survivors of childhood cancer into an ongoing randomized controlled trial (RCT) of health promotion.

METHODS

A total of 244 adolescents were contacted by mail and telephone to assess their trial eligibility. Data were collected with respect to each adolescent's demographics and trial recruitment efforts (frequency and intensity of telephone call contact); exclusion and randomization status were tracked throughout.

RESULTS

Thirty-one percent of adolescents were ultimately randomized in the trial and 69% were excluded from randomization (13% were ineligible, 33% refused to participate, 22% were unreachable or nonresponsive, that is, did not respond to trial mailings or telephone calls, and less than 1% were withdrawn prior to randomization). Among all eligible adolescents, the trial's consent rate was 49%. Adolescents excluded owing to refusal resided the farthest away from the intervention site and experienced the least amount of telephone call contact time. The primary reasons for trial refusal were lack of interest in health promotion (28%) and lack of time to participate (23%).

CONCLUSIONS

Health promotion RCTs among adolescent survivors of childhood cancer may help prevent and control the onset and severity cancer-treatment-related late effects. However, trial success may be contingent upon tracing nonresponsive adolescents and reducing and eliminating barriers to participation.