Recruitment Strategies for a Post Cessation Weight Management Trial: A Comparison of Strategy Cost-Effectiveness and Sample Diversity

Effective recruitment of representative and diverse samples in research trials is important to the generalizability of findings and in describing access to behavioral interventions. The current study evaluated the effectiveness of local and national recruitment strategies for a smoking cessation and weight management-focused randomized controlled trial (FitQuit). The overall cost-effectiveness of recruitment strategies was also evaluated.The study initially recruited participants locally in the Memphis, TN area and later transitioned to national recruitment, necessitated by the transition to remote assessment strategies due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The study evaluated effective recruitment strategies for randomized participants (The most effective recruitment strategies were local postcards, local radio advertisements, word-of-mouth referrals, and national internet advertisements, which resulted in a combined 71.8% (Results provide information on effective and cost-effective local and national recruitment methods for recruiting underrepresented groups of participants in behavioral clinical intervention studies.