Recruitment, Engagement, and Community Health (REACH) Research Core

Project Summary Participant recruitment is one of the top barriers that investigators report to successfully conducting their research and is one of the most common reasons why research studies and clinical trials fail. Poor external validity is also a common limitation of much of the available clinical research today and contributes to both the difficulties replicating research findings across settings and the persistently wide gap between research and practice. Research on substance use and chronic disease has also frequently been focused on relatively homogenous samples that are often very different than the broader US population. As a result, findings from research in this area may be applicable only to particular groups and geographic areas, resulting in interventions and treatments that fail to generalize or are not appropriate for some populations. Effectively reaching and engaging relevant populations in health research requires unique skills and deep expertise in marketing methods that are often beyond the skillset of investigators leading health research. Accessing this expertise is often difficult for early-stage investigators (ESI) who have had limited exposure to research engagement activities. To address these challenges, we propose the creation of a new Recruitment, Engagement, and Community Health (REACH) Research Core in Phase II. The overall goal of the REACH Core will be to provide complete, end-to-end support for research recruitment and engagement to help CADRE and affiliated investigators meet their enrollment and sample composition targets. The Core will serve as a single source for all recruitment and outreach-related needs, providing assistance with study naming and branding, campaign strategy, audience definition, platform identification, ad design, and campaign implementation, monitoring, and optimization. The REACH Core will also establish and maintain a registry of local and national prospective participants with various characteristics relevant to substance use disorder and chronic disease and provide relevant leads to consulting investigators when appropriate. Together, we believe these steps will contribute real value for both ESIs and more experienced investigators alike by providing them with access to professionals with robust marketing skills and create economies of scale by obviating the need for each investigator to hire dedicated staff with this expertise. Our hope is that providing more proficient recruitment services can also ultimately improve the science produced and the interventions developed from this research. Providing these services across the university and nationwide will also aid in transitioning the Core to financial sustainability in Phase III.