Reaching the hard-to-reach: a systematic review of strategies for improving health and medical research with socially disadvantaged groups
By B. Bonevski, Madeleine Randell, Chris Paul, K. Chapman, L. Twyman, Jamie Bryant, I. Brozek, Clare Hughes. BMC Medical Research Methodology, 2014
1,341 citations recorded by the source corpus.
BackgroundThis study aims to review the literature regarding the barriers to sampling, recruitment, participation, and retention of members of socioeconomically disadvantaged groups in health research and strategies for increasing the amount of health research conducted with socially disadvantaged groups.MethodsA systematic review with narrative synthesis was conducted. Searches of electronic databases Medline, PsychInfo, EMBASE, Social Science Index via Web of Knowledge and CINHAL were conducted for English language articles published up to May 2013. Qualitative and quantitative studies as well as literature reviews were included. Articles were included if they reported attempts to increase disadvantaged group participation in research, or the barriers to research with disadvantaged groups. Groups of interest were those described as socially, culturally or financially disadvantaged compared to the majority of society. Eligible articles were categorised according to five phases of research: 1) sampling, 2) recruitment and gaining consent, 3) data collection and measurement, 4) intervention delivery and uptake, and 5) retention and attrition.ResultsIn total, 116 papers from 115 studies met inclusion criteria and 31 previous literature reviews were included. A comprehensive summation of the major barriers to working with various disadvantaged groups is provided, along with proposed strategies for addressing each of the identified types of barriers. Most studies of strategies to address the barriers were of a descriptive nature and only nine studies reported the results of randomised trials.ConclusionsTo tackle the challenges of research with socially disadvantaged groups, and increase their representation in health and medical research, researchers and research institutions need to acknowledge extended timeframes, plan for higher resourcing costs and operate via community partnerships.
Subfields: General Health Professions, Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/cb557c981ec8b9b3856a73b1d3b354e67dbd343f
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In General Health Professions
Citations in the corpus
- Data Collection Challenges and Recommendations for Early Career Researchers (2015, methodology): “Participants may have concern about the confidentiality of their health information if they are revealing personal information to the researcher in the interview (Bonevski et al., 2014).”
- Series: Practical guidance to qualitative research. Part 3: Sampling, data collection and analysis (2017, methodology): “As you want to get as much detail as possible, you also ask follow-up questions or encourage telling more details by using probes and prompts or keeping a short period of silence [6].”
- Finding the Hidden Participant (2015, background): “Common participant resource constraints affecting participation in research include finding child care and forgetting about or deprioritizing research when faced with other priorities and stresses of daily life (Bonevski et al., 2014).”
- Women's Perceived Empowerment in Entrepreneurial Efforts: The Role of Bricolage and Psychological Capital (2019, background): “In non-western contexts and among hard to identify or reach populations, convenience samples derived from community organizations are typical (Bonevski et al. 2014).”