Methods for Elderly Blood Draw Participant Recruitment

Problem Statement: It has been suggested elderly participants are difficult to recruit for clinical trials due to their uninterest in participation and the relative difficulty of reaching them via digital methods. For this study, the aim was to recruit 100 generally healthy participants aged ≥85 years of age specifically from Twin Cities, MN for a 90-minute general health evaluation and blood draw using targeted digital outreach campaign.

Description: Facebook was utilized to create a geofenced campaign with a restricted age set to users ≥85 years of age. Creative was designed to appeal to healthy volunteers such that people who would disqualify on the screener would self-select out of the recruitment process. 312 participants were recruited and completed the pre-screener digital assessment online expressing interest in study participation. The recruitment effort lasted less than 6 weeks from launch to LPI.

Lessons Learned: Despite current beliefs, older populations are active internet users and reachable via digital advertising.

Stakeholder Perspective: High levels of engagement and an extremely high rate of conversion from ‘interested volunteer’ to ‘completed participant’ indicate an overall willingness among older adults to participate in this type of research when the opportunity is made known to them.