Research That Matters (January 17 - 20, 2008)

Purpose: Recruitment of hard-to-reach populations is a significant problem for qualitative researchers in the social sciences. The literature on hard-to-reach populations focuses on how to gain entrée, with an emphasis on the location of participant recruitment and strategies for sample selection. Recruitment for hard-to-reach populations typically takes place in the field or in institutions. Recruitment selection involves several strategies, such as selection driven by the respondents/key informants, recruitment at selected agencies, and street selection processes. Gaining entrée for recruitment is difficult even if you can find potential participants. This often requires a long standing relationship with their community or with a trusted institution. This paper will describe diverse recruitment strategies and sites used in three qualitative homeless youth studies. The author will identify strengths and weaknesses of the strategies employed.

Methods: This paper will present three recruitment examples, as described below:

Street Life on Mill Avenue: A video ethnography on homeless youth. Street-based recruitment was used with thirteen homeless youth in a participatory video ethnography. The project was an exploratory study of the lived experiences of street-based homeless youth. Over 500 hours of field time was spent with various youth living on the street. The participants were involved in video ethnography collection, analysis, and dissemination.

New Trends in Local Homeless Policies: A phenomenological study of homeless experiences. Eleven youth and adult homeless participated in this phenomenological study. The participants responded to a flyer posted at two local street outreach programs, one that served just youth and the other that primarily served adults. Each participant engaged in a 1-2 hour videotaped interview about their experiences with local homeless policies.

Envisioning the Voices of Homeless & Runaway Youth: A photovoice research project. Eight homeless youth in a Transitional Living Program (TLP) participated in this photovoice study. Each youth was given a disposable camera to photograph the strengths/challenges of homeless youth. The youth were given copies of their photos, asked to select most significant images, and write about them. These images and short narratives were shared with the group and themes were identified.

Results: Each recruitment approach had both strengths & weaknesses. For each study the recruitment processes varied on the following axes: 1) Time required to gain entrée—recruitment within an agency expedited the process. 2) Ease of developing rapport—rapport was quicker when research was associated with a trusted service provider. 3) Difference in sample populations—the service based population was younger & had fewer risk factors than non-service based peers. The unique aspects of each study population altered recruitment procedures and created varying findings due to differing lived experiences. Further recruitment strategies varied due to study design (photo-voice, interview, ethnography) and IRB restrictions.

Implications: The issue of recruitment is a significant one when attempting to do qualitative research with hard-to-reach populations. Different recruitment procedures might be better suited depending on the constraints of a research study. Site-based recruitment provides speedy access participants, while field-based offers access to the most at-risk and understudied segment of a population.