Community-based research: Barriers to recruitment of African Americans
Section snippets
Power-difference barriers to recruitment
Power differences are reflected in an unequal degree of authority and influence between the researcher and research participants, at sociocultural, economic, educational, and health care levels. This power differential can result in mistrust by the potential participants. Managing these power differences is essential to promote trust and respect17 and to successfully recruit and retain African-American research participants. Power differences incorporate historical and current racial
Strategies to overcome power-difference barriers
Community advisory boards17 and community-based participatory action research, a research methodology that promotes collaboration between the researcher and the community in conducting research,30, 31 are effective strategies that can be used to overcome power-difference barriers (and thus facilitate recruitment of African Americans). These strategies uphold the community interests through the development of community partnerships and, consequently, community ownership of the research.
Conclusion
To promote optimal recruitment of African Americans, researchers must be cognizant of the barriers inhibiting research participation. Power-difference barriers and conceptual barriers to recruitment have afforded researchers the opportunity to view recruitment as a component of the research process that needs the same level of attention as the research design and data analysis. In addition to acknowledging these barriers, researchers must attempt to overcome them by developing innovative and
Barbara L. Dancy is a Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL.
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2021, Mayo Clinic ProceedingsCitation Excerpt :The remaining 4 studies were analytic observational studies or mixed-methods studies of recruitment processes. The studies outlined details of CEnR strategies for recruitment to randomized trials (n=24),26–49 observational studies (n=25),50–74 or mixed-methods/qualitative studies (n=2)75,76; 8 articles highlighted lessons learned from recruitment to more than one study,47,63,77–82 and other studies described the development of a registry (n=4),83–86 a community advisory board (CAB) (n=3),87–89 or multifaceted community infrastructure (n=2)90,91 for future recruitment efforts. In this context, studies sometimes used qualitative and/or quantitative approaches to evaluate the recruitment strategies.
Community Organizing for Healthier Communities: Environmental and Policy Outcomes of a National Initiative
2016, American Journal of Preventive MedicineCitation Excerpt :The accumulation of numerous policy wins across multiple social systems and diverse communities suggests that community organizing–based health promotion may be effective—and generalizable—in challenging a variety of structural inequities (including social and economic) underlying childhood obesity and related ethnic/racial health disparities. Furthermore, heavy resident participation in CCHE interventions indicates that community organizing may be a productive method for engaging people of color in health promotion, thus overcoming their healthy cultural mistrust toward externally driven health programming79–83 by deeding them ownership over the process. In particular, engaging youth was critical to CCHE interventions’ success in both generating policy wins and building long-term community power.
Co-creation and engagement in a DNA integrity cohort study
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Barbara L. Dancy is a Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL.
JoEllen Wilbur is a Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL.
Marie Talashek is a Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL.
Gloria Bonner is an Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL.
Cynthia Barnes-Boyd is an Associate Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL.
This research was supported in part by Center for Cardiovascular and Respiratory Health, NIH, NINR, P20 NR07812.