Overcoming Challenges: Recruiting Hispanic Youth to a Clinical Trial

Introduction: Hispanic adolescents report higher use of drugs and alcohol than their Black and White peers. Yet few prevention trials have been attempted to reduce these youths’ substance use risks. Particularly lacking are outcome studies with national, representative samples of Hispanic youth. In conducting such work, the recruitment and retention of adolescent Hispanic research participants pose significant challenges. Increasingly, however, studies and interventions are moving to online platforms owing to the near ubiquitous nature of mobile technology. That most Hispanic adolescents have access to smartphones offers a promising vehicle for reaching these youths with prevention programming and evaluation procedures.

Methods: This study is a longitudinal, randomized clinical trial to develop and test a smartphone-based drug and alcohol abuse prevention program for Hispanic adolescents ages 12 to 15 years. All youths complete online surveys across 3 years, with one-half of the youths randomly selected to complete a 13-session, culturally tailored, skills-based prevention program.

To date, online study recruitment efforts through youth-targeted websites, Google, Facebook, and mobile advertisements have met with mixed success. Youths and parents appear reluctant to connect online with persons and institutions unknown to them. Consequently, we have partnered with roughly 300 community- and faith-based organizations in more than 20 states for recruitment purposes. In addition, we have mounted a recruitment campaign through newspaper, radio, and online advertisements in targeted areas.

Results: Despite Hispanic adolescents’ relatively greater use of mobile devices, online and mobile advertisements failed to generate sufficient participants. Outreach to adolescents conducted in partnership with trusted community- and faith-based organizations generated significant participation from Hispanic youths. Recruitment efforts tailored to youths’ parents were particularly successful, as parental familiarity with smartphone technology influenced youths’ ability to secure consent to participate.

Conclusions: Online and mobile ads targeting Hispanic youths and their parents failed to yield a sufficient sample of youths with assent and parental permission. Support from respected community-based organizations and local leaders may be critical to secure the parental permission required to enroll Hispanic adolescent participants for smartphone-based substance abuse prevention trials.