Abstract
BackgroundRacial and ethnic minority groups are underrepresented in health research, contributing to persistent health disparities in the United States. Identifying effective recruitment and retention strategies among minority groups and their subpopulations is an important research agenda. Web-based intervention approaches are becoming increasingly popular with the ubiquitous use of the internet. However, it is not completely clear which recruitment and retention strategies have been successful in web-based intervention trials targeting racial and ethnic minorities.ObjectiveThis study aims to describe lessons learned in recruiting and retaining one of the understudied ethnic minority women—Korean Americans—enrolled in a web-based intervention trial and to compare our findings with the strategies reported in relevant published web-based intervention trials.MethodsMultiple sources of data were used to address the objectives of this study, including the study team’s meeting minutes, participant tracking and contact logs, survey reports, and postintervention interviews. In addition, an electronic search involving 2 databases (PubMed and CINAHL) was performed to identify published studies using web-based interventions. Qualitative analysis was then performed to identify common themes addressing recruitment and retention strategies across the trials using web-based intervention modalities.ResultsA total of 9 categories of recruitment and retention strategies emerged: authentic care; accommodation of time, place, and transportation; financial incentives; diversity among the study team; multiple, yet standardized modes of communication; mobilizing existing community relationships with efforts to build trust; prioritizing features of web-based intervention; combined use of web-based and direct recruitment; and self-directed web-based intervention with human support. Although all the studies included in the analysis combined multiple strategies, prioritizing features of web-based intervention or use of human support were particularly relevant for promoting recruitment and retention of racial and ethnic minorities in web-based intervention trials.ConclusionsThe growing prevalence of internet use among racial and ethnic minority populations represents an excellent opportunity to design and deliver intervention programs via the internet. Future research should explore and compare successful recruitment and retention methods among race and ethnic groups for web-based interventions.Trial RegistrationClinicalTrials.gov NCT03726619; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03726619.
Highlights
BackgroundHealth research creates generalizable scientific knowledge, leads to positive changes in health policy, and improves human health and health care [1,2]
The purpose of this paper is to describe our experiences and lessons learned in recruiting and retaining Korean American women for the e-CHECC-uP study
The e-CHECC-uP study participants were recruited over a span of 6 months (July to December 2019) from 5 Korean churches in the Greater Baltimore area, and 72% (52/72) women who were screened for this study were considered as eligible for enrollment
Summary
Health research creates generalizable scientific knowledge, leads to positive changes in health policy, and improves human health and health care [1,2] These benefits are not shared among the racial and ethnic minority groups in the United States, as they are vastly underrepresented in biomedical research. Web-based intervention approaches are becoming increasingly popular with the ubiquitous use of the internet It is not completely clear which recruitment and retention strategies have been successful in web-based intervention trials targeting racial and ethnic minorities. All the studies included in the analysis combined multiple strategies, prioritizing features of web-based intervention or use of human support were relevant for promoting recruitment and retention of racial and ethnic minorities in web-based intervention trials.
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