Improving African American Participation Rates in Health Intervention Research

The Obesity Prevention Center of the University of Minnesota was part of a multi-site study designed to develop and test interventions to prevent excessive weight gain by African American girls as they enter and proceed through puberty. Historically, there have been barriers to recruit African Americans into studies because of mistrust of health research within the African American community. In order to overcome these barriers and achieve their recruitment goals for the study, the investigators implemented recruitment strategies targeted at the African American community.

The specific strategies used were mailings, flyers, radio announcements, and group presentations. All strategies were aimed at increasing trust in the relationships between the researchers and communities.

To improve participation of African Americans in health promotion and intervention research.

In a multi-site study on interventions to reduce excess weight gain in African American adolescent girls, three out of four centers met their recruitment goals using strategies specifically targeted at the African American community. Caregivers of the adolescents who consented to participation in the study were most likely to hear about the program from the radio (29%), a flyer from the school (23%), or from their child (18%). The most frequent reason given by girls was that the program sounded like fun (70%). These findings demonstrate that participation rates in health research studies can be improved among the African American community using targeted strategies, especially “black radio.”