title: Strategies to recruit and retain older Filipino-American immigrants for a cancer screening study.
abstract: Recruitment and retention of subjects in cancer prevention, screening, and treatment trials is challenging, especially if subjects are low-income, from minority groups or immigrants with limited English fluency. This article describes our experiences in recruiting 530 female Filipino-American immigrants at community based organizations and churches for a randomized trial that assessed the effect of a small group educational session on breast and cervical cancer screening. We found that a personal invitation from either a female project liaison, a friend, or the Filipino project director were all successful strategies that resulted in over 80% attendance at an educational session that was offered as part of the study. Although non-attendees did not differ from attendees in demographic characteristics, they expressed significantly more barriers to participating in a health study. Attendance at the group session was a significant predictor of retention in the study. We were able to conduct telephone follow-up surveys among 88% of enrollees at 12 month follow-up and 76% at 24 month follow-up. Results and implications are discussed in the hope that they may facilitate future participation of Filipinos and other Asian immigrants in research.
authors.affiliation: Division of Cancer Prevention and Control Research, UCLA School of Public Health and Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, Los Angeles, CA 90095-6900, USA. amaxwell@ucla.edu
authors.forename: Annette E
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Maxwell
authors.forename: Roshan
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Bastani
authors.forename: Perlaminda
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Vida
authors.forename: Umme S
authors.initials: US
authors.lastname: Warda
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000208:ethnology; D004641:Emigration and Immigration; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008403:Mass Screening / Q000379:methods*; D008875:Middle Aged; D018579:Patient Selection; D010679:Philippines / Q000208:ethnology; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology; D002583:Uterine Cervical Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000208:ethnology