Outreach Strategies to Recruit Low-Income African American Men to Participate in Health Promotion Programs and Research: Lessons From the Men of Color Health Awareness (MOCHA) Project

Abstract

African American men continue to bear a disproportionate share of the burden of disease. Engaging these men in health research and health promotion programs—especially lower-income, African American men who are vulnerable to chronic disease conditions such as obesity and heart disease—has historically proven quite difficult for researchers and public health practitioners. The few effective outreach strategies identified in the literature to date are largely limited to recruiting through hospital clinics, churches, and barbershops. The Men of Color Health Awareness (MOCHA) project is a grassroots, community-driven initiative that has developed a number of innovative outreach strategies. After describing these strategies, we present data on the demographic and health characteristics of the population reached using these methods, which indicate that MOCHA has been highly effective in reaching this population of men.