Reaching the “Hard-to-Reach”: Recruitment of Rural-Dwelling Adults With Disabilities

Abstract

Introduction: There are 46 million individuals living in rural America that require unique consideration for rural health research. Recruitment of research participants from disparity groups can be difficult as these groups can be hard-to-reach. In particular, strategies for reaching rural-dwelling Americans with disabilities are not well-documented. Furthermore, researchers sometimes underestimate the time and effort needed to recruit participants from hard-to-reach populations. The purpose of this article is to report the methods used to recruit 12 rural-dwelling adults with disabilities into a qualitative study. Method: The recruitment strategies discussed in this article were used in a grounded theory study. Results: Fifty percent of the sample in this study was recruited via a community gatekeeper, 33% responded to a classified advertisement, and 17% were recruited via the researchers’ professional networks. Discussion: Lessons learned yield insights as to effective recruitment methods for rural dwellers as well as other hard-to-reach populations.