Recruiting elderly African-American women in cancer prevention and control studies: a multifaceted approach and its effectiveness.
Barriers to engaging African Americans as research participants may be accentuated among older single African-American women partly because of financial, social, physical, and cognitive factors. This article shows our multifaceted strategies and experiences in the recruitment of single African-American women aged 65 and older in a cancer prevention and control study. The study was conducted in 10 public housing complexes in Nashville, Tennessee. Out of 367 eligible women, 325 participated in the study, resulting in a rate of 89%. The result suggests that a strategy, which targets the cultural, perceptive, and cognitive characteristics of the population, was effective for increasing the enrollment of study subjects in this population. Because the single constitute 75% of African-American women aged 65 and older; and the incidence and mortality of cancer are especially high in elderly African Americans, our experiences are encouraging for cancer prevention and control research in the population.
Zhu
K
K
Department of Occupational and Preventive Medicine, Meharry Medical College, Nashville, Tennessee 37208, USA.
Hunter
S
S
Bernard
L J
LJ
Payne-Wilks
K
K
Roland
C L
CL
Levine
R S
RS
D001741:Black or African American / Q000523:psychology; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D044383:Black People; D002986:Clinical Trials as Topic / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D009042:Motivation; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000517:prevention & control*; D018579:Patient Selection