TIFFANY ISRAEL, MSSWYVONNE JOOSTEN, MPH

MEHARRY-VANDERBILT COMMUNITY ENGAGED RESEARCH CORE

OCTOBER 24 , 2014

The Art of Recruitment

Overview

• What research says about recruitment

• Plan, plan, plan• Know Your Population of Interest• Identify Potential Barriers to Participation

• Be on Message

• Establishing Genuine Communication

• Recruit, Retain, Relax

• Partnering with CBOs

What the Research Says

• Only 1% of US population participates in health studies

• 30% of clinical trial sites fail to recruit even a single participant

• Less than 10% of clinical trials are completed  on time

• Initial approaches to recruitment are rarely successful, take longer than planned, and the pool of participants is overestimated.

Plan, Plan, Plan

Who?

What?

When?

Where?

Why?

Plan, Plan, Plan

• Identify Barriers to Participation

• Understand Cultural and Conceptual Barriers

• Be Aware of Life Stressors

Life Stressors

Be on Message

• Create a FAQ

• Develop a study website

• Uniform brochure

Recruit

Establish Trust

• Past and recent history of unethical research

• Historic trauma leads to distrust of academic institutions

• Exclusion from potentially beneficial research studies

• Quality health care may be out of reach

• Real and perceived exploitation by outsiders

• Data mining or helicopter research

Recruit

Be clear about benefits• To patient• To community• To overall

system

Financial compensation• Fair and

equitable

Retain

• Connect

• Personalize

• Be flexible

• Be ready

• Be respectful

Relax

Community partners can help:

Develop strategies and promotional materials

Identify best venues and media

Serve as a community recruitment site

Identify staff who can be trained to assist as part of research team

Working with Community Partners

Focus of community organizations: Mission (service, advocacy, education) Focused on problem solving, not

research

Helping research studies can be a burden

Too busy

Too costly

Too disruptive

Working with Community Partners

Timing – engage early! Align interestsEquitable compensation/benefitDefine roles and expectationsCompromise & transparency

importantMaintain good communicationDiscuss ways to disseminate study

resultsPlan for sustainability