Journal
JOURNAL OF THE NATIONAL MEDICAL ASSOCIATION
Volume 110, Issue 1, Pages 44-52Publisher
NATL MED ASSOC
DOI: 10.1016/j.jnma.2017.06.011
Keywords
Recruitment; Health disparities; Underserved populations; Minorities
Categories
Funding
- National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health [R21CA165939]
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To help understand and mitigate health disparities, it is important to conduct research with underserved and underrepresented minority populations under real world settings. There is a gap in the literature detailing real-time research staff experience, particularly in their own words, while conducting inperson patient recruitment in urban community health centers. This paper describes challenges faced at the clinic, staff, and patient levels, our lessons learned, and strategies implemented by research staff while recruiting predominantly low-income African-American women for an interviewer-administered survey study in four urban Federally Qualified Health Centers in New Jersey. Using a series of immersion-crystallization cycles, fieldnotes and research reflections written by recruiters, along with notes from team meetings during the study, were qualitatively analyzed. Clinic level barriers included: physical layout of clinic, very low or high patient census, limited private space, and long wait times for patients. Staff level barriers included: unengaged staff, overburdened staff, and provider and staff turnover. Patient level barriers included: disinterested patients, patient mistrust and concerns over confidentiality, no-shows or lack of patient time, and language barrier. We describe strategies used to overcome these barriers and provide recommendations for in-person recruitment of underserved populations into research studies. To help mitigate health disparities, disseminating recruiters' experiences, challenges, and effective strategies used will allow other researchers to build upon these experience in order to increase recruitment success of underserved and underrepresented minority populations into research studies.
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