Preliminary feasibility for recruiting and retaining black and white females to provide fecal samples for longitudinal research

Tiffany L Carson,Rebecca B Little,Sh’Nese Townsend

doi:10.1186/s13099-019-0324-7

Tiffany L Carson, Rebecca B Little + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.1186/s13099-019-0324-7

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Journal: Gut Pathogens	Publication Date: Aug 26, 2019
Citations: 1	License type: open-access

Affiliation: University of Alabama at Birmingham

Abstract

As the associations between the gut microbiota and numerous health outcomes become more evident, it is important to conduct longitudinal microbiome research to advance the field beyond the identification of associations. It is also necessary to include individuals who have historically been underrepresented in biomedical research in longitudinal microbiome studies to better understand and eliminate racial/ethnic health disparities. This paper describes our experiences in recruiting and retaining participants for an ongoing, longitudinal microbiome study for which the main results will be reported at a later time. This article provides preliminary evidence of the feasibility of recruiting and retaining a racially diverse sample of females (97% completion for invited participants) for longitudinal microbiome research.

Highlights

The gut microbiota is increasingly being identified as a contributor to health status
While the volume of studies identifying associations between the gut microbiota and a range of chronic conditions is great in number, cross-sectional studies alone do not allow for causal inference
This paper describes our experiences in recruiting and retaining participants for an ongoing, longitudinal microbiome study for which the main results will be reported at a later time

Summary

Introduction

The gut microbiota is increasingly being identified as a contributor to health status. These studies generally did not report adequate representation of black females, a group that is historically underrepresented in biomedical research despite bearing a disproportionate burden of chronic diseases Several of these studies focused on post-partum females, neonates and pediatrics [11, 13, 17, 22, 23, 25, 27, 28], transplant patients [15, 16, 19], or diseases including irritable bowel syndrome, Clostridium difficile, and HIV [8, 18, 20, 24, 26]. One study examining the gut microbiota among breast cancer survivors reported adequate representation of black females [9]

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