AIDSImpact.com:: - Santa Fe, USA 2011

Abstract #160 - Engaging community volunteers as active partners to improve young men’s participation in biomedical research: lessons from the Impilo Yamadoda - Men’s Health Study in rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.
Authors: Presenting Author: Mr Sebastian Fuller - University College London
Additional Authors: Prof. Graham Hart, Prof. John Imrie,
Aim: The Impilo Yamadoda: Men’s Health Study explores and evaluates the effect of a strategic community engagement technique on identification and engagement of young Zulu men in health research. The study used repeated stakeholder involvement and structured social science enquiry to assess young men’s willingness to participate in both social science and biomedical research. In reflexive practice analysis we found that our strategic technique worked to encourage engagement of men in the target communities to all phases of research. We hypothesise that this community engagement technique has potential positive implications for recruitment and retention to biomedical research in similar resource-poor settings.
Method / Issue: The Impilo Yamadoda study used a four-phase multi-method approach to: 1) identify volunteers from local employment and community organisations; 2) provide training for volunteers and assist with community engagement and implementation of a men’s health survey; 3) qualitatively explore men’s beliefs about involvement in HIV prevention research and perceptions of clinical trials, and 4) conduct an experimental study including comparing modalities of bio-specimen collection to evaluate the effects on potential recruitment, retention, and incentive strategies that could be used in a large-scale trial. Process outcomes from the study and an additional dataset of qualitative interviews with a purposive sample of volunteer survey administrators were analysed as part of the reflexive practice exercise.
Results / Comments: High participation in the early social science phases of the project preceded unexpectedly high interest in Phase 4. Phase 2 health survey completion, n=696 recruited over 8.14 weeks (expected 400); of these 78% (n=543) left contact information in order to participate in future research. Recruitment methods used in early phases were repeated to engage men in the experimental study; enrolment ended 2 weeks ahead of schedule. Four-weeks post enrolment, 95% attended the intervention and randomisation. Follow-up at 3 months was 91%. Qualitative data from volunteer survey administrators indicates that previous experiences with community development work increased their ability to engage potential participants to the research.
Discussion: Our results suggest that willingness to participate in the biomedical study is likely to have been influenced by early social science participation and/or positive study recognition. Experimental phase results are pending, however high retention in Phase 4 from baseline to first and subsequent follow-up suggests we can expect continued good adherence to experiment protocols. Giving community partners an active role in the research implementation produced a sense of trust and ownership that was conveyed to potential participants and ultimately helped engage more men to the biomedical phase of research. Our findings suggest use of trusted community volunteers as active partners to the research process may be applied to other studies attempting to engage men in biomedical research in similar resource-poor settings.
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