Using targeting to recruit men and women of color into a behavioral weight loss trial

Abstract

Background: The majority of participants in weight loss trials are non-Hispanic White women, while men and women of color are underrepresented. This study presents data obtained from non-targeted and targeted recruitment approaches in a trial of behavioral weight loss programs to (1) describe the yields from each approach and (2) compare the demographics, weight control histories, and study involvement of samples recruited by each approach. Methods: Data for this observational study include source of recruitment, demographic information, weight loss experiences (e.g., lifetime weight loss, current weight loss behaviors), and completion of the 6-month assessment visit. Results: Men comprised 14.2% of participants who responded to non-targeted recruitment efforts, while targeted efforts yielded 50.4% men. Similarly, people of color comprised 12.8% of those who responded to non-targeted approaches, whereas targeted recruitment methods yielded 47.2% people of color. Men recruited through targeted methods were younger (p = 0.01) than men recruited through non-targeted means but were otherwise similar. Women of color recruited through targeted methods reported use of fewer weight loss strategies relative to women of color recruited through non-targeted means (p = 0.006) but were otherwise similar. There were no differences by recruitment method on retention to the study. Conclusions: Using targeted recruitment methods increased the ethnic and gender diversity of the recruited sample without reducing study retention. This targeting also increased the enrollment of women with less weight loss experience who may not have otherwise sought out a weight loss program. Developing and implementing a targeted recruitment plan should be considered early in the clinical trial development process.

Recruiting underrepresented individuals in a double pandemic: Lessons learned in a randomized control trial

“…Institutions that engaged in nontargeted recruitment methods, such as sending recruitment materials via listservs or departmental emails, had more applications because self-identification is often the only way to identify UR postdoctoral fellows and faculty when using the NIH definition. This is contrary to what has been published in the literature for recruiting UR participants into clinical trials [30,31].…”

“…This is contrary to what has been published in the literature for recruiting UR participants into clinical trials. 30,31 This study is subject to the following limitations. First, we did not assess the reason for the variability in recruitment success by site champions nor did we collect organizational characteristics for the participating institutions.…”

Recruitment of Men Into a Pragmatic Rural Primary Care Weight Loss Trial

“…These findings indicate that direct mailings alone may not be sufficient for recruiting men and women equally and that additional cost-effective outreach recruitment strategies are necessary to target men. One example of this is from Crane et al (2020) who recruited for a weight loss trail using community-wide outreach; they reported that strategic radio ads accounted for recruiting 50% of men screened versus only 6% of women screened. Similarly, another weight loss intervention recruiting only men found that a 1-week newspaper ad campaign was the most effective, leading to 67 (65.7%) enrolled men compared to the 35 (34.3%) enrolled from worksite recruitment, email newsletters, social media, and recruitment posters combined ( Rounds & Harvey, 2019 ).…”

“…However, even when men-specific targeted messages are incorporated in recruitment materials, men’s screening rates may not improve (Crane et al, 2016). Targeted messaging also has been successful in recruiting at-risk populations (Crane et al, 2020). Furthermore, many behavioral intervention materials were designed with women in mind (George et al, 2012), which can negatively influence men’s interest due to perceptions of dieting and masculine identity (Archibald et al, 2015; de Souza & Ciclitira, 2005; Grace et al, 2018; Rounds & Harvey, 2019; Sabinsky et al, 2007).…”

Association of childhood abuse with behavioral weight‐loss outcomes: Examining the mediating effect of binge eating severity

“…A Markov chain Monte Carlo imputation model was used to achieve monotone missingness followed by fully conditional specification to impute the remaining missing values. A more detailed description of participant flow through the 6-month assessment has been described elsewhere (22,29).…”