Table 2.

Successful and applicable recruitment and retention strategies

Strategy	Cohort	Condition	Intervention	Reference
Recruitment strategy
Incentives (gift certificates, cash or checks, prepaid cellular phones, and calling cards)	Adolescents and young adults ages 8–26 years	Chronic disorders (e.g., HIV, sickle cell disease) and social behavior studies	Behavioral interventions to promote smoking cessation and improve management of HIV, sickle cell, and type 1 diabetes care; health prevention programs to reduce risk factors for alcohol abuse, habitual smoking, type 2 diabetes, and HIV infection	[3,4,15,18,24,26–29]
Advertising (online one-click advertisement banners; coupon-based peer recruitment; text message advertisements)	Youth ages 15–30 years	Individuals at risk for HIV infection, active injection drug users, and young people at risk for chlamydia infection	Testing the efficacy of an online HIV-prevention intervention called “Keep It Real,” preventing HIV and hepatitis C virus infection among injection drug users, and investigating the impact of a multimedia chlamydia campaign to promote safe sexual behaviors in Australian youth	[14,17,20]
Retention strategies
Incentives (railway passes, movie gift certificates, school credit, or free food)	Adolescents and young adults ages 8–30 years	Chronic disorders (e.g., HIV, sickle cell disease) and social behavior studies	Behavioral interventions to promote smoking cessation and improve management of HIV, sickle cell, and type 1 diabetes care, health prevention programs to reduce risk factors for alcohol abuse, type 2 diabetes, and HIV infection	[3,4,14,15,17,19,20,24,26–31]
Trust/confidentiality (required patient confidentiality for nondisclosure of HIV–positive status, secret smoking behaviors, and covert injection drug use)	Adolescents and young adults ages 12–30 years	Individuals with positive HIV infection, smoking behaviors, and active injection drug use	Behavioral interventions to improve HIV management, promote smoking cessation, and reduce injection and sexual risk behaviors of active injection drug users	[17,20,23,31,36]
Continuous contact and communication (acquisition of multiple addresses and at least two telephone numbers; address cards updated every 2 months and addresses verified by phone with parents/guardians; constant tracking of patients’ whereabouts via acquiring alternative contact numbers from friends, relatives, and neighbors; mandatory verification of valid e-mail addresses; and constant communication with frequent appointment reminders)	Youth <25 years	Youth diagnosed with type 1 or 2 diabetes; mobile adolescent mothers that were largely Hispanic and only Spanish speaking; individuals at risk for alcohol abuse, habitual smoking, type 2 diabetes, and HIV infection	Epidemiological study to estimate the prevalence and incidence of diabetes in children and youth; longitudinal study characterizing the effect of young mothers’ interactions with their babies on the child’s emotional and behavioral development; behavioral intervention to improve management of type 1 diabetes care; health prevention programs to reduce risk factors for alcohol abuse, habitual smoking, type 2 diabetes, and HIV infection	[3,4,14,25,26,28–30,36,37]

HIV = human immunodeficiency virus.