Recruiting elderly African-American women in cancer prevention and control studies: A multifaceted approach and its effectiveness

Barriers to engaging African Americans as research participants may be accentuated among older single African-American women partly because of financial, social, physical, and cognitive factors. This article shows our multifaceted strategies and experiences in the recruitment of single African-American women aged 65 and older in a cancer prevention and control study. The study was conducted in 10 public housing complexes in Nashville, Tennessee. Out of 367 eligible women, 325 participated in the study, resulting in a rate of 89%. The result suggests that a strategy, which targets the cultural, perceptive, and cognitive characteristics of the population, was effective for increasing the enrollment of study subjects in this population. Because the single constitute 75% of African-American women aged 65 and older, and the incidence and mortality of cancer are especially high in elderly African Americans, our experiences are encouraging for cancer prevention and control research in the population.