Examining the efficacy of Community –Based Recruitment for Clinical Research Participation

Clinical researchers have found it very difficult to recruit participants for their trials. The results of not having enough participants can result in statically insignificant data and may not be able to answer the research question. I am examining the efficacy of Community –based recruitment for clinical research participation.

The methods I utilized consisted of using a single study that examined the three major self-reported complaints of AIDS research participants (Discloser of information, potential for harm and education of participant) and used multiple corresponding literatures to confirm that community-based organizations (CBOs) do address the social inadequacies of clinical-research trials.

Over the past summer, I interned at University of Pennsylvania’s HIV/AIDS vaccine clinical trials division. I conducted phone screening and helped recruit participants for the   085,505 clinical trials. At the same time, I volunteered at a local Philadelphia community–based organization that focuses on public health. I observed that this certain CBO had a very effective recruitment strategy based upon reciprocating reward with research participation. Actual clinical research site were not as effective in recruitment. As a result, I did some literature research and found a strong correlation between using CBOs for recruitment strategies.

I suggest a CBO based partnership model be piloted and to examine the result of the experiment.

I conclude that CBOs would be worth exploring for future research recruitment to increase the participants. Through the literature review I deduced that a community based approach would be an effective tool to combat self-reported complaints of potential research participants.