Recrutement actif de seniors socio-économiquement défavorisés pour des ateliers de prévention : la procédure INVITE

Abstract

Introduction: The risk of aging in poor health is greater among disadvantaged people, but they benefit less from health prevention actions focused on diet and physical activity.

Purpose of the study: The INVITE research-action aims to [1] develop an active recruitment procedure to encourage older adults identified as disadvantaged to attend diet and physical activity prevention workshops in the French region Provence-Alpes Côte d'Azur (PACA), [2] evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of this procedure, and [3] measure the effective participation in the workshops of the identified older adults.

Results: The INVITE procedure was co-developed by researchers, social workers, and older adults. It includes six steps: identification, invitation letter, telephone contact, home visit, phone call confirmation, and welcome session during the workshop. A pre-test phase made it possible to identify the barriers facing older adults and their motivations at each step, and thus to improve the procedure. The evaluation phase of the effective participation showed that, for 9 workshops, 47 home visits were carried out and 11 older adults participated in the workshops.

Conclusion: The INVITE procedure is well received and makes it possible to reach out to disadvantaged older adults and bring them to prevention workshops. Since the prevention workshops promote social diversity, this procedure could be an effective lever to avoid widening social inequalities in health. A larger-scale deployment would help to better characterize participants' sociodemographic profiles and to evaluate costs.