title: The National Children's Study: Early Recruitment Outcomes Using the Direct Outreach Approach.
abstract: In 2009, the National Children's Study (NCS) Vanguard Study tested the feasibility of household-based recruitment and participant enrollment by using a birth rate probability sample. In 2010, the NCS Program Office launched 3 alternative recruitment methods. We tested whether direct outreach (DO) recruitment could be a more efficient strategy to recruit women of child-bearing age.
  
  
  
  The NCS DO recruitment approach recruited women, 18 to 49 years, who were pregnant or trying to conceive using passive recruitment methods emphasizing broad community outreach and engagement to create study awareness. Study mailings to listed households included a pregnancy screening questionnaire to identify potentially eligible women from selected neighborhoods to contact the study center. Unique features of this recruitment approach included the following: (1) expansion of selected neighborhoods to maximize potential participant recruitment and enrollment while minimizing in-person participant contact and (2) offering 2 levels of study participation distinguished by data collection intensity.
  
  
  
  Ten study centers listed 255 475 geographically eligible households for contact representing, on average, 3.3% of households per Primary Sampling Unit. A total of 19 354 women were identified for screening, and 17 421 completed a pregnancy screener representing 6.8% of eligible households. Study-eligible pregnant women were older, more educated, and less likely to be Hispanic than the general population. Only 16% (2786) of 17 421 screened women were study-eligible, and 81.1% of these 2786 women consented to participate.
  
  
  
  Although feasible, the DO approach recruited a sample of study-eligible pregnant women significantly different from the population. This recruitment approach was labor intensive for the yield of enrolled women.
authors.affiliation: School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota; pmcg@umn.edu.
authors.forename: Patricia M
authors.initials: PM
authors.lastname: McGovern
authors.affiliation: Medica Research Institute, Minnetonka, Minnesota;
authors.forename: Nancy M
authors.initials: NM
authors.lastname: Nachreiner
authors.affiliation: Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois;
authors.forename: Jane L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Holl
authors.affiliation: Schools of Medicine, Public Health, and Public Policy, University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California;
authors.forename: Neal
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Halfon
authors.affiliation: Colorado School of Public Health, University of Colorado, Aurora, Colorado;
authors.forename: Dana
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Dabelea
authors.affiliation: The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland;
authors.forename: Laura
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Caulfield
authors.affiliation: Graduate School of Public Health, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania;
authors.forename: Jane A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Cauley
authors.affiliation: Center for Persons with Disabilities, Utah State University, Logan, Utah; and.
authors.forename: Mark S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Innocenti
authors.affiliation: Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois;
authors.forename: Laura
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Amsden
authors.affiliation: Graduate School of Public Health, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania;
authors.forename: Nina
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Markovic
authors.affiliation: Westat, Rockville, Maryland.
authors.forename: Minsun
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Riddles
authors.affiliation: Westat, Rockville, Maryland.
authors.forename: Sara
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Adams
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001723:Birth Rate / Q000639:trends; D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development; D003159:Community-Institutional Relations / Q000639:trends; D005240:Feasibility Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008875:Middle Aged; D015337:Multicenter Studies as Topic / Q000379:methods; D054582:National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (U.S.) / Q000639:trends; D018579:Patient Selection; D011247:Pregnancy; D037841:Pregnant People; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology; D055815:Young Adult