Recruiting African American smokers into intervention research: Relationships between recruitment strategies and participant characteristics

Abstract

The purposes of this study were to (a) to describe an 8-month recruitment campaign to enroll African American smokers (N = 249) into a randomized controlled trial and (b) examine characteristics of participants recruited through proactive (face-to-face), reactive (television, radio, or newspaper ads inviting participants), and combination (both reactive and proactive) approaches. Reactive recruitment was most successful (43%), followed by proactive (31%), and combination (26%) recruitment. Compared to proactive recruitment, reactive recruitment was associated with lower nicotine dependence, and greater readiness to quit, processes of change engagement, and acculturation. Combination recruitment was associated with lower nicotine dependence and greater readiness to quit. The differences according to recruitment strategy could be used to tailor recruitment strategies for African American smokers.