Recruitment Resources

UT Health SA Find-a-Study is a service provided by the Office of Clinical Research for connecting people interested in participating in a research study to investigators with research studies open to enrollment .The website allows patients to search for studies or register as a volunteer to be contacted by researchers for general interest or interest in a specific study. Study listings on Find-a-Study will be automatically posted for studies registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, but investigators may opt out of study record display from the Find-a-Study website. Studies not required to register with ClinicalTrials.gov may request a listing on Find-a-Study by completing and submitting IRB Form L-1. 

ResearchMatch.org: UT Health SA is a participating institution in ResearchMatch, a free recruitment and feasibility analysis tool for researchers. Individuals who are interested in participating in research studies can create a profile on ResearchMatch with information about their location and health status. Investigators with IRB-approved studies can use the ResearchMatch system to find potential participants who meet their enrollment needs in terms of health conditions and locations, then contact them about participation in a deidentified manner. Investigators can also run deidentified searches to see the approximate number of potential volunteers in the database meeting study criteria for feasibility purposes before obtaining IRB approval. Go to https://www.researchmatch.org/researchers/ for more information.

The Clinical Informatics Research Division (CIRD) is a research and academic division dedicated to improving health care by bridging biomedical, statistical, and computational domains. The CIRD curates a de- identified data warehouse that is accessible to researchers through multiple software tools such as i2b2, TriNetX, etc., for data query for study feasibility purposes. Additionally, researchers may request collaboration with the CIRD to obtain individual level or identified data for IRB approved research studies.

The EMPaCT Consortium (Enhancing Minority Participation in Clinical Trials), established in 2009, published a number of papers on barriers to minority participation in clinical trials and how to overcome them, including a dedicated supplement issue of the journal Cancer (Enhancing minority participation in clinical trials (EMPaCT): Laying the Groundwork for Improving Minority Clinical Trial Accrual . (2014). Cancer, 120(S7), ii-vii, 1087-1130. doi:10.1002/cncr.30168). The Consortium’s YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/user/EMPACTconsortium/featured may also be of interest to researchers seeking to encourage minority enrollment in their studies.

Vanderbilt University also has a free-to-audit course on Coursera titled “Faster Together, Enhancing the Recruitment of Minorities in Clinical Trials.” https://www.coursera.org/learn/recruitment-minorities-clinical-trials.

Identification, initial contact, and recruitment of a potential human subject form the foundation of the informed consent process.  Both the screening and the recruitment process should demonstrate and reflect respect for the dignity and autonomy of the potential participants by avoiding any potential undue influence and by protecting both the privacy of the individual and the confidentiality of any information obtained for recruitment and/or screening purposes. The recruitment plan should reflect elements which demonstrate equitable selection of participants, respect for privacy, lack of pressure, an unbiased presentation, and be void of conflicting interests.

Recruitment involves a well thought out plan to maximize recruitment rate through a strategic assessment:

Expected recruitment targets

• Investigator Initiated Research: How many subjects are needed to answer the research questions?
• Externally Sponsored Research: How many subjects are you contracted to enroll in the study?

Target patient population

• Given the inclusion and exclusion criteria of the study who are the subjects that need to be targeted.
• Age Range
• Gender
• Barriers to recruitment
  • Study related barriers should be limited to reduce the burden on participation. Examples of study related barriers include;
  • Inclusion/Exclusion requirements
  • The number or frequency of procedures and visits. 
  • The invasiveness, risk or time commitment of procedures.

Recruitment Period

• Length of time in which we have to recruit and enroll subjects in the study.
• Projection of the frequency and how many subjects need to be recruited to reach recruitment goal.
  • # of Sites
  • # of Weeks or Months to Recruit
  • Screen Fail Rate, number of subjects to recruit to get 1 enrolled subject.
  • Expected attrition rate
    • Subjects who start active treatment in the study however do not end up completing participation.
    • Lost to Follow-up
    • Withdrawal

Methods to reach target audience

Recruitment Budget

Recruitment performance monitoring