141st APHA Annual Meeting

In This section

291504
Community health worker perspectives on recruitment and retention of recent immigrant women in a randomized clinical trial

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Jung Ah Ahn , Korean Resource Center, Ellicott City, MD
Myung Kim , The Johns Hopkins Universtiy School of Nursing, Baltimore, MD
Hyekyung Chin , Korean Resource Center, Ellicott City, MD
Hyun Ju Choi , Korean Resource Center, Ellicott City, MD
Kim B. Kim, PhD , Executive Director, Korean Wellness Center, Ellicott City, MD
Miyong Kim, PhD, RN, FAAN , School of Nursing, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD
Hae-Ra Han, PhD, RN, FAAN , School of Nursing, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD
Objective/Purpose: Based on a strong partnership built over the past ten years, this community-academic collaborative team implemented a cluster-randomized trial designed to test a community health worker (CHW)-led intervention program to promote breast and cervical cancer screening among Korean American (KA) women. The purpose of this paper is to report on the recruitment and retention success and specific strategies used by CHWs. Methods: We used prescreening forms, meeting logs, and interview data from four focus groups with CHWs. Descriptive statistics and content analysis were used to summarize our findings. Results: 28 CHWs from 23 churches screened 782 KA women and enrolled 560 eligible women in the trial (intervention, n=278; control, n=282). Over the 6-month of intervention period, 31 women dropped from the study, resulting in 94.5% retention rate. CHWs used a variety of methods to advertise the study and enroll participants such as church bulletin board and/or newsletters, telephone contacts using church membership list, and verbal persuasion at varying venues (e.g., lunch meeting in and outside of the church). While the majority of enrolled participants were recruited through CHWs' own church network, most successful retention strategies were: “not rushing it,” genuine attention and care about the participant, trust, and peer support (and competition among participants). Conclusion: CHWs successfully recruited KA women in a large-scale randomized trial and were able to retain most of them over the study period. Motivated and well-trained CHWs may be used to facilitate participation of hard-to-reach communities in a randomized trial.

Learning Areas:
Public health or related research

Learning Objectives:
Discuss the recruitment and retention success and strategies used by trained community healt workers in a randomized clinical trial

Keywords: Asian Americans, Minority Research

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am a mastered prepared community health worker who has been working on three large-scale intervention trials. For example, I have successfully coordinated 23 sites for a research study and have participated in local conferences to present findings and lessons learned.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.