Information for Community Members
Struggling to Recruit and Retain Diverse Study Participants?
With support from the CU Anschutz NIH/NIA R24 research infrastructure award, we have the following resources to help you respond:
Hire an Expertly Trained Older Adult Research Specialist (OARS) to Join Your Team
Older Adult Research Specialists bring their lived experiences and more than 120 hours of training by CU Anschutz Multidisciplinary Center on Aging to help support recruitment and retention for your studies. They can be your team’s expert in identifying feasible ways to address barriers to research, promoting retention in clinical trials, as well as anticipating and helping you proactively address factors contributing to dropout and attrition of older adult participants.
Resources to support your new OARS hire are linked below:
OARS roles represent a subset of the roles typically performed by clinical research professionals; their competencies include:
- Conducting community outreach, engagement, and education activities
- Facilitating discussions as part of the informed consent process
- Communicating aspects of clinical trials in ways that are understandable to populations with lower health literacy and/or whose experience with research contributes to distrust
- Familiarity with the necessary scientific concepts, ethical and participant safety considerations, investigational products development and regulation, leadership and professionalism, and communications and teamwork
- Some candidates may also have complementary experience as educators, making them able to identify feasible approaches to recruiting and retaining older adults
The School of Medicine has established OARS community engagement research services positions as follows:
Job class: Research Services Entry Professional
Salary (full-time): $45,702-$58,133*
Sample job description: Full-time
When ready to grow your team to include an Older Adult Research Specialist, post your position on CU's Taleo Jobsite, or sign into CU's SharePoint site to see current, trained OARS candidates.
*part-time roles are also possible
Expand Recruiting With a Research Roadshow
The CU Anschutz Multidisciplinary Center on Aging also aims to increase recruitment and retention of older adults in clinical trials through Research Roadshows that engage older adults from geographically and culturally diverse communities.
We hold one roadshow per quarter designed to reach older adults and their families in communities throughout Colorado. Boost your older adult recruiting efforts and expand the impact of your clinical trials.
Email the OARS team to learn more about participating in an upcoming roadshow.
From the get-go, the ideas were on target to address recruitment issues, and everyone was very happy with how the OARS consult team worked to make it participant-centered.
Inclusion of Older Adults in Research Consult Service
Investigators/research study teams can meet with Older Adult Research Specialists to brainstorm ideas and get feedback to support the recruitment and retention of older adults in their research studies. The consult can inform the recruitment and retention plan in NIH applications.
Here's how the process works:
More Resources
Clinical Trials Decision Support
NIA-Funded Trials
CU Anschutz Trials
Citations:
1 Chang E-S, Kannoth S, Levy S, Wang S-Y, Lee JE, Levy BR (2020:14) Global reach of ageism on older persons’ health: A systematic review. PLoS ONE 15(1): e0220857 (https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0220857).
2 NOT-OD-18-116: Revision: NIH Policy and Guidelines on the Inclusion of Individuals Across the Lifespan as Participants in Research Involving Human Subjects