Diverse Recruitment Strategies Are Needed to Reduce Digital Divide: Results from a Workshop Addressing Digital Divide and Effects of Pandemic Restrictions

Stud Health Technol Inform. 2022 May 25:294:811-812. doi: 10.3233/SHTI220592.

Abstract

Recruitment is a bottleneck for research - especially digital health studies. Studies often focus on those who are easy to reach or already engaged in their health, leaving those who are uninterested or un-engaged, as "un-reached". This contributes to the "digital divide". COVID-19 restrictions made recruitment more difficult. During a virtual workshop of our peers, we discussed recruitment of un-reached groups for digital health studies, especially during COVID-times. All agreed; we need to go where the un-reached are by collaborating with community-based services and organizations.

Keywords: COVID-19; Digital divide; recruitment; un-reached.

MeSH terms

  • COVID-19*
  • Community-Based Participatory Research / statistics & numerical data
  • Digital Divide*
  • Humans
  • Pandemics* / prevention & control
  • Patient Selection*
  • Peer Group
  • Research Design / standards*
  • SARS-CoV-2*