The Community Recruitment and Retention (CRR) Shared Facility is an infrastructure designed to facilitate and assist CCC investigators in recruiting subjects to participate in clinical research and to provide linkage between the community and UAB Researchers. The Facility: 1) provides CCC researchers with diverse recruitment services (for example, designing recruitment strategies, recruiting subjects, developing recruitment materials and advertisements, etc.); 2) provides and maintains the necessary linkage between CCC researchers and the surrounding communities, including potential research subjects, community-based organizations, community leaders, and community health care providers; 3) disseminates culturally appropriate information regarding techniques for recruitment and retention of minority subjects suitable for UAB investigators; and 4) establishes and maintains an information system with a Recruitment Data Base (RDB) comprised of a Mass Mailing System (MMS), a Recruitment Tracking System (RTS), and a Health Profile System (HPS) to identify subjects with certain health profiles of interest to UAB investigators. Since its inception the CRR facility has had accrual of over 24,000 individuals participating in 23 cancer studies of which 42% of the participants were minorities and 78% women. In the last four years, the CRR focused its efforts on refining minority population recruitment strategies, especially for population-based studies. We also developed state-of-the-art information and tracking systems, finalized the operational procedures, and reinforced and developed new partnerships with community organizations and health care providers. The CRR remains timely and has significant research implications. Having in place a centralized database, an infrastructure, and expertise with general and minority-specific recruitment strategies, rather than rebuilding with each study, is of critical importance to CCPS and chemoprevention investigators.
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