Community Liaison and Recruitment Core Abstract African American older adults continue to lag dramatically behind Non-Hispanic Whites in terms of both health outcomes and participation in health research. The most common barriers to research recruitment are fear and mistrust. The Healthier Black Elders (HBE) Participant Registry of the MCUAAAR employs best practices in the science of recruitment, retention, and continuing program evaluation. We propose two major ways we will initially extend the MCUAAAR's work in recruitment, retention science, and community translation. First, we will conduct a long-term retention study on the MCUAAAR Registry, including a recruitment and retention study of participants in the University of Michigan Alzheimer's Disease Center's (MADC) longitudinal study of memory and aging. Second, we will broaden our reach through the expanded institutional MCUAAAR partnership with Michigan State University (MSU), and continuing collaborations with the MADC, and the Wayne State University (WSU) Environmental Health Center, among other NIA/NIH Centers in the new Internal Resources Group; and, use the logic model to extend immediately the MCUAAAR Registry into the Flint community and engage with community dwelling African American older adults. Our three specific aims for the CLRC include: 1) Contribute to the science of recruitment and retention of older African Americans by further testing the efficacy and efficiency of the Participant Registry; 2) Extend and expand partnerships with community-based organizations in Detroit and Flint; and, 3) Disseminate to, and translate scientific information for, the respective communities. The CLRC is clearly present in all of the MCUAAAR core activities. In the Administrative Core, the Healthier Black Elders Center is housed within the WSU of Gerontology, which is led by MCUAAAR Co- Director Peter Lichtenberg. The REC will oversee specific educational opportunities in community-based research and research partnerships, both among the faculty and junior research investigators at the three universities year-around, and in the long-running summer workshop program. The Analysis core will assist in recruitment and retention research by applying the best measures, methods, and statistical design and analyses to the long-term retention study.
Showing the most recent 10 out of 219 publications
