Comparison of Recruitment Strategies for Engaging Older Minority Adults: Results From Take Heart

BackgroundFew published studies report lessons learned for recruiting older adults from racial/ethnic minority, low SES communities for behavioral interventions. In this article, we describe recruitment processes and results for Take Heart, a randomized controlled trial testing the effectiveness of an adapted heart disease self-management program for primarily African American, urban, low SES adults 50 years or older living in Detroit.MethodsOlder adults were recruited via community-based (CB), electronic medical record (EMR), and in-person hospital clinic (HC) methods. Recruitment processes, demographic characteristics of enrolled participants, yield and cost, lessons learned, and best practices for each method are described.ResultsWithin 22 months, 1,478 potential participants were identified, 1,223 were contacted and 453 enrolled, resulting in an overall recruitment yield of 37%. The CB method had the highest yield at 49%, followed by HC at 36% and EMR at 16%. Of six CB approaches, information sessions and flyers had the highest yields at 60% and 59%, respectively. The average cost of recruiting and enrolling one participant was $142.ConclusionsCB, EMR, and HC methods each made important contributions to reaching our recruitment goal. The CB method resulted in the highest recruitment yield, while EMR had the lowest. Face-to-face interaction with community members and hiring a community health worker were particularly useful in engaging this population. Further research is needed to confirm these findings in urban, minority, low SES populations of older adults.