Factors influencing participation in and perceptions of academic research by disadvantaged women in a Welfare Transition Program

Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR), which actively involves the population being studied in the research process, provides investigators a unique opportunity to study subjects' reasons behind their participation in academic research. These motives are particularly important when working with disadvantaged populations who may have little trust in the research process and a number of other barriers to participating in studies. One population with significant challenges to engaging them in research are low-income, predominantly minority women.

This presentation describes one part of an ongoing CBPR study funded by NIH/NINR that utilizes a public health nursing approach to reduce health disparities in women going through a welfare transition program (WTP). Ten focus groups were conducted in which women in the WTP described stress and lack of time as a major factor complicating their lives. This presentation describes the results from a descriptive, mail-out survey in which women conveyed reasons for their participation in these focus groups (n=59).

The findings suggest some characteristics of studies are more highly valued than others. Reasons ranked as most important factors for participation, for example, included the opportunity to discuss health issues and to talk with other women in the WTP, as well as the fact that nurses were conducting the study. Additionally, 91% of respondents found it extremely important that the researchers recognized unmet health needs in this group of women. Such data is invaluable for engaging participants in future research studies such as this, with the ultimate goal of developing effective interventions for underserved communities.