A systematic review of strategies that increase the recruitment and retention of African American adults in genetic and genomic studies.

The National Institutes of Health mandates the inclusion of ancestrally diverse populations into federally funded biomedical and clinical trials research. However, low participation of ethnic minorities in genetics-genomics research continues to be one of the most difficult aspects of conducting human subjects research. This systematic review was conducted to document effective recruitment strategies that increase participation in genetics-genomics studies. Extensive literature search strategies were employed to locate and appraise relevant literature reporting original data in which strategies to recruit African American adults into genetics-genomics research studies had been evaluated. Six studies published up to July, 2011 were included. Informal recruitment strategies for initial contact appeared to have a more positive impact on increasing recruitment and participation numbers than formal mailings of letters and postcards. Another key stratagem identified was participant-recruiter like-ancestry. Other methods such as monetary incentives and support of the research project by community leaders were not as effective. Some strategies bolstered recruitment rates while others did not. More research is needed to determine the efficacy of recruitment strategies with African Americans.