Table 2.

Approaches to recruit and retain diverse racial/ethnic populations in behavioral lifestyle weight loss intervention trials.

Strategy	Description
Community engagement	•Approach to establish trusting academic-community research partnerships. •Potential to enhance diverse participation and ultimately real world impact (Wang and Beydoun, 2007; Schwartz, 2001; Cho, 2006; Foster and Sharp, 2002; George et al., 2014).
Community based participatory research (CBPR)	•Approach may be effective in increasing participation of racial/ethnic diverse groups. •CBPR trials have had much success in recruitment and retention of subjects, and achieving significant intervention effects (Las Nueces et al., 2012).
Research partnerships	•Community-based organizations that serve diverse populations have been successful at enhancing not only diversity in research studies, but also the relevance of the research overall.
Effective workforce strategies for recruitment and retention	•Approach includes employing racially and ethnically diverse research staff and lead investigators who represent and understand the diverse communities targeted. •Increased frequency of contact and training staff in cultural competency and rapport and relationship building with the target communities (Warner et al., 2013; Carroll et al., 2011b; Pagoto et al., 2015; Coday et al., 2005).
Peer to peer sampling strategies (respondent-driven and snowballing)	•Effective in engaging under-represented and diverse populations in research and provide opportunities for future methodological inquiry and options for recruitment protocols (Otado et al., 2015).
Technology to recruit and deliver	•Eliminates transportation and logistical issues related to trial and intervention participation. •Electronic scales allow weight measurements to be uploaded to researchers provide a way to assess weight change without clinic visits.