A Community-Academic Collaborative Recruitment Approach to Explore Faith-Based Blood Pressure Intervention Strategies Among Young African American Men

Abstract

Few community interventions target young African American men, who often develop high blood pressure earlier than other U.S. race/gender groups. In climates of constrained health resources, African American faith-based organizations (i.e., churches) may provide sustainable environments for community-based participatory research initiatives. However, methods describing recruitment of faith leaders and young African American men in these settings are limited. Our collaborative team of community and academic partners recruited these two groups for a qualitative exploratory study of perceptions and strategies for developing future interventions aimed at reducing blood pressure for young African American men 18–50 years of age. Senior pastors from two churches in the southeastern U.S. endorsed and promoted the recruitment. Our community partners recruited the faith leaders using rosters generated by the senior pastors. Kick-off meetings, pastoral announcements delivered during church services, flyers, and word-of-mouth guided recruitment of young African American men. Our academic partners conducted phone interviews with church leaders and focus groups with young African American men. We discussed recruitment progress during our weekly/bi-weekly team teleconferences. Among other things, we learned that community coordinators were instrumental in modifying the list of church leaders; recruitment of men 18–34 years of age for focus groups was more challenging than for men 35–50 years of age; and competing church activities impacted recruitment. We successfully recruited church leaders; recruiting younger African American men was challenging. Strategic planning around church events, extended recruitment periods and flexibility, and early and frequent communication was necessary to bolster recruitment to successfully complete our study.

locked icon

Sign in to access this content

Get a 30 day FREE TRIAL

  • Watch videos from a variety of sources bringing classroom topics to life
  • Read modern, diverse business cases
  • Explore hundreds of books and reference titles