Internet recruitment may increase study disparities

01-Aug-2016 - Last updated on 02-Aug-2016 at 15:11 GMT

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis found that fewer than half of European-American people who were asked to go to a website as part of a medical research study ever followed up by visiting the website. (Image: Washington University School of Medicine)

While the internet has been touted as a new way to reach study participants, a recent study suggests it may hinder the recruitment of minorities.

“The internet may be a great resource for recruitment, but it does not erase the difficulty we have for recruiting underserved participants,” Sarah M. Hartz, MD, PhD, told Outsourcing-Pharma.com. “We need to develop strategies for internet recruitment that can help break down these barriers.”

Hartz explained that previous studies have shown recruitment is difficult in populations living below the poverty level, because they are harder to reach due to less stable living situations. “This may also be the case in internet-based studies,” she said.

The study, which was led by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, supported these claims and concluded that unless clear efforts are made to increase engagement in under-represented groups, disparities will continue.

“The study revealed that even when people reported being very interested in participating, lack of high school education or living in poverty made it so they hardly every participated,” explained Hartz, who added that African Americans were less likely to participate than European Americans.

“To me, it was most surprising that logging into a website using email is not equally accessible to all participants. Because so many of my person routines for home and work involve this process (banking, paying bills, shopping, etc.), I had assumed that it was nearly ubiquitous,” said Hartz.

“We need to work with communities to figure out how to make participating in studies as easy for the underserved populations as logging into a website using email is for us,” she added.

The researchers noted that the conclusions are of particular relevance today with the launch of the Precision Medicine Initiative, which seeks to enroll more than one million US participants by 2020.

“We have a unique opportunity to help improve outcomes in underserved populations by recruiting Americans from all populations,” said Hartz.

However, she explained “if we assume that all groups of Americans will be equally reached using internet tools, we may lose this opportunity to improve our healthcare.”