TY - JOUR
T1 - Recruiting African Immigrant Women for Community-Based Cancer Prevention Studies
T2 - Lessons Learned from the AfroPap Study
AU - Cudjoe, Joycelyn
AU - Turkson-Ocran, Ruth Alma
AU - Ezeigwe, Angelica K.
AU - Commodore-Mensah, Yvonne
AU - Nkimbeng, Manka
AU - Han, Hae Ra
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2019, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.
PY - 2019/10/15
Y1 - 2019/10/15
N2 - Recruitment in research can be challenging, particularly for racial/ethnic minorities and immigrants. There remains a dearth of research identifying the health and sociocultural needs of these populations related to recruitment. To describe our experiences and lessons learned in recruiting African immigrant (AI) women for the AfroPap study, a community-based study examining correlates of cervical cancer screening behaviors. We developed several recruitment strategies in collaboration with key informants and considered published recruitment methods proven effective in immigrant populations. We also evaluated the various recruitment strategies using recruitment records and study team meeting logs. We enrolled 167 AI women in the AfroPap study. We used the following recruitment strategies: (1) mobilizing African churches; (2) utilizing word of mouth through family and friends; (3) maximizing research team’s cultural competence and gender concordance; (4) promoting altruism through health education; (5) ensuring confidentiality through the consenting and data collection processes; and (6) providing options for data collection. Online recruitment via WhatsApp was an effective recruitment strategy because it built on existing information sharing norms within the community. Fear of confidentiality breaches and time constraints were the most common barriers to recruitment. We were successful in recruiting a “hard-to-reach” immigrant population in a study to understand the correlates of cervical cancer screening behaviors among AI women by using a variety of recruitment strategies. For future research involving African immigrants, using the internet and social media to recruit participants is a promising strategy to consider.
AB - Recruitment in research can be challenging, particularly for racial/ethnic minorities and immigrants. There remains a dearth of research identifying the health and sociocultural needs of these populations related to recruitment. To describe our experiences and lessons learned in recruiting African immigrant (AI) women for the AfroPap study, a community-based study examining correlates of cervical cancer screening behaviors. We developed several recruitment strategies in collaboration with key informants and considered published recruitment methods proven effective in immigrant populations. We also evaluated the various recruitment strategies using recruitment records and study team meeting logs. We enrolled 167 AI women in the AfroPap study. We used the following recruitment strategies: (1) mobilizing African churches; (2) utilizing word of mouth through family and friends; (3) maximizing research team’s cultural competence and gender concordance; (4) promoting altruism through health education; (5) ensuring confidentiality through the consenting and data collection processes; and (6) providing options for data collection. Online recruitment via WhatsApp was an effective recruitment strategy because it built on existing information sharing norms within the community. Fear of confidentiality breaches and time constraints were the most common barriers to recruitment. We were successful in recruiting a “hard-to-reach” immigrant population in a study to understand the correlates of cervical cancer screening behaviors among AI women by using a variety of recruitment strategies. For future research involving African immigrants, using the internet and social media to recruit participants is a promising strategy to consider.
KW - African immigrants
KW - Cervical cancer
KW - Pap testing
KW - Recruitment strategies
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85066040248&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85066040248&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s10900-019-00677-y
DO - 10.1007/s10900-019-00677-y
M3 - Comment/debate
C2 - 31102117
AN - SCOPUS:85066040248
SN - 0094-5145
VL - 44
SP - 1019
EP - 1026
JO - Journal of Community Health
JF - Journal of Community Health
IS - 5
ER -