Evaluation of Recruitment Approaches in Community-Based HIV Prevention Research: Insights From an Innovation Tournament.

CONTEXT: Participatory methods facilitate end-user engagement with research and rely on strategies that successfully recruit community participants. An innovation tournament successfully crowdsourced ideas for the implementation of long-acting, injectable preexposure prophylaxis among sexual minority men (SMM) in Chicago. Evaluation of the success of recruitment strategies will provide insights on this community-facing participatory approach.

OBJECTIVE

This work evaluated the reach and cost of the recruitment strategies deployed during the innovation tournament.

DESIGN

Advertisement methods involved (1) physical (eg, flyers), (2) digital (eg, social media), and (3) in-person (eg, tabling). Recruitment locations were informed by partner organizations, and geospatial distribution of HIV prevalence and key population demographics. QR codes and URLs were developed for each advertisement type and location to enable systematic tracking of the source of ideas. Descriptive statistics were calculated.

SETTING

Chicago, Illinois.

PARTICIPANTS

Participants for the innovation tournament included community members in Chicago (≥13 year old). Recruitment strived to engage SMM, particularly Black and Latino individuals. Individuals involved in recruitment efforts included the research team, graphic designer, and community-based partners.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Reach was defined as the number of ideas submitted in the tournament. Cost was calculated from administrative data.

RESULTS

Seventy-three ideas were submitted from 5 recruitment locations (eg, sexually transmitted infection clinics) and from relevant key populations (eg, 60% Chicago residents and sexual minorities). Physical advertisements on public transportation yielded the greatest number of submissions (31%). The digital advertisements from community-based organization listserv/emails produced the ideas with the highest scores, whereas advertisements on public transportation generated ideas with the lowest scores. Cost-effectiveness varied across locations. Public transportation had the highest costs per submission, whereas digital advertising incurred the lowest costs.

CONCLUSIONS

This work can inform future recruitment efforts to maximize the success of participatory research within the community. Findings provide insight into cost-effective recruitment strategies that yield high reach.