Improving African Americans’ Intentions to Enroll in a Health Registry: Message Development and Evaluation

Aurora Occa, Diane B. Francis, Adriane Grumbein, Hayley M. Stahl

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

African Americans’ enrollment in health registries is low, negatively affecting their representation in clinical research. Young African Americans are particularly underrepresented. Because medical discoveries are typically based on findings from research that lacks minority representation, new treatments may not be equally effective with members of the African American community. This may further exacerbate health disparities. In this two-phase study, we first collected data from five focus groups to (a) investigate young African Americans’ knowledge about and attitudes toward health registries and (b) explore their perceptions about current messages used to recruit participants into health registries. The findings from the first phase of our research showed that participants had limited awareness and understanding of health registries’ functions and held negative attitudes toward research participation. In Phase 2, we conducted an experiment to compare the effects of a current message, a new message designed based on the findings from our Phase 1 study, and a control. Results showed mixed findings on the impact of the new targeted message. Based on the findings from both phases of this study, we present and discuss future strategies.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)2884-2893
Number of pages10
JournalHealth Communication
Volume38
Issue number13
DOIs
StatePublished - 2023

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

Funding

This work was supported by a Speed Dating for Researchers-IX Collaborative Funding grant from the College of Communication and Information at the University of Kentucky.

FundersFunder number
University of Kentucky

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • Health(social science)
    • Communication

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