Successes and Challenges Recruiting Homosexual, Bisexual, and Heterosexual Adolescents for an HIV/STI- Focused Motion Comic Study

Adolescents and young adults (AYA) [15 – 24 years of age] comprise about 14% of the U.S. population; however, in 2010 half of the estimated 20 million sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and 26% of the nearly 50,000 HIV-diagnoses occurred in this age group. Development of successful interventions requires participant feedback. Engagement of AYA is a critical component of successful interventions to prevent acquisition and transmission of HIV/ STIs.  Researchers and interventionists have not described well the difficulties that may be encountered with recruiting AYA to attend focus groups outside of educational settings. For the Motion Comics Study (MoCom) we sought to recruit disproportionately affected minority AYA of different races, ethnicities and sexual orientations (i.e., young gay, bisexual, and heterosexual men and women) who may be at risk for HIV and STIs to participate in the development and evaluation of a motion comic addressing HIV/STI prevention.

On a limited budget, we used a variety of recruitment strategies and incentives based on the demographic characteristics of the population. During the presentation, we will discuss our successes, specific recruitment techniques, the unexpected barriers (i.e., recruiting young white gay men), and other issues that arose while trying to recruit and engage study participants. Our strategies were both passive (i.e., snow ball sampling, internet ads, palm cards and flyers) and active (i.e., engaging personal community contacts, attending comic conventions, and conducting street outreach), based on the sexual orientation of the population being recruited.