AppalTRuST Community Outreach and Participant Engagement Core

ABSTRACT – COMMUNITY OUTREACH AND PARTICIPANT ENGAGEMENT (COPE) CORE The Community Outreach and Participant Engagement (COPE) Core will recruit and retain the AppalTRUST Cohort of 2,000 adults (ages 18+) in Appalachian Kentucky (KY) including a) an address-based probability sample (PS) of 1,000 participants; and b) a quota-based non-probability sample (NPS) of 1,000 participants. The Biostatistics and Informatics Core (BIC) will use statistical methods to combine them. Project 1 will use the full AppalTRUST Cohort (N=2,000), providing an adequate sample to capture estimates of tobacco use behaviors (e.g., initiation, switching, transitions) over time among subpopulations of interest (e.g., young adults, tobacco users). Project 2 (n=308, ages 18-24) and Project 3 (n=473 tobacco users, ages 21+) will draw from the Cohort. All projects, pilots, and TCORS partners will have access to the Cohort data through our AppalTRUST Data Warehouse. Using established rural/urban taxonomies, we selected heterogeneous counties that make up a rural catchment of 5 counties and a peri-urban (i.e., intermediate and smaller cities and towns) catchment of 3 counties, enabling projects to assess contextual- and individual-level effects of rurality on outcomes, enhancing innovation and our ability to inform effective FDA regulations for these areas. COPE Aims are to: (1) develop and implement a culturally tailored community-engaged outreach campaign to promote participation in the AppalTRUST Cohort; (2) implement strategic recruitment and baseline data collection for the AppalTRUST Cohort (Project 1) and recruitment into the other projects and pilot studies; (3) implement strategic retention strategies and administer 6-month follow-up surveys; and (4) disseminate AppalTRUST research findings to the community to sustain support and retention. COPE will co-design a community outreach campaign with two community advisory boards (one per catchment) with promotional materials tailored for Appalachian KY that are strategically disseminated to reach subpopulations of interest (e.g., tobacco users). COPE will hire, train, and monitor local field staff to recruit and enroll participants into the AppalTRUST Cohort and manage completion of 6-month follow-up surveys. Cohort participants will complete 3 to 8 surveys, depending on time of enrollment in Project 1. Multiple strategies will maximize retention, including our community outreach campaign and monthly contact between participants and field staff. Our community dissemination plan will report back AppalTRUST study findings to sustain community support and Cohort retention. The innovative approaches implemented by COPE will support AppalTRUST in closing a critical knowledge gap in rural tobacco use behaviors, marketing, and impact analysis to help shape effective FDA regulations for this region.