Recruiting in Hispanic Communities Posted on November 26, 2007 Jodi M. Gonzalez (bio) talks about recruiting Hispanic participants in Texas.

That’s actually one area of study, is how to improve recruitment. And it really depends upon the group you’re working with and the particular study. So we’ve used various approaches. First is understanding the problems, the issues, with recruitment and retention once people enter the study.

I work in Texas, so we have a unique population there where we have very recent immigrants, Hispanic immigrants who may not speak English, to people who have lived in Texas, of Hispanic background, for generations who are very different from that group.

And it is a challenge, because if the researcher is coming from a different background, and does not have experience in a particular cultural background, they may know less well what the barriers are. So I think we have looked at trying to educate the researchers who are starting projects and then also how to change our strategies.

A protocol is typically pretty stringent, a clinical trial, let’s say. You need to come every week, you need to come up to this area of town, be on time, because we have somebody in an hour that we need to see.

We look at all those variables and what’s challenging. And for some people it’s, "I’ve never been to that part of the city before so I need someone to go with me," or transportation, not having the funds, or flexibility. They may have childcare issues or other demands that keep them from being on time, and they can’t come once a week. They’d like to participate, but it’s not feasible.

I think clinical trials have become a little more flexible in that way. Not to make the science less rigorous, but if somebody needs to come every two weeks, they're being a little more flexible with that. And having people who are conducting the research who are culturally competent. It depends upon how you want to describe that, but who they feel is a representative of their community or understands their community is very important.

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