Table 3.

Illustrative quotes of barriers/facilitators to opportunity to participate in studies of biological markers

Barriers to opportunity
•	Communication
	“They took about seven tubes of blood and never told me anything about the study results… What exactly   is going to be collected and studied?”
•	Professionalism
	“We had an incident here…you had a young man collecting [biomarkers]…he spoke down…he didn’t   understand…when we tried to correct him on his wording, he got more agitated and angry.”
•	Costs (wages, parking)
	“They need to pay for my parking. I’m going to give them [bio-specimens] so they could pay for that.”
•	Specimen collection burden
	“I have to see them take it [specimen collection equipment] out of the wrapper. Wash their hands before   you even touch me. It makes a difference to me if I see this.”
Facilitators to opportunity
•	Protocol characteristics
	“I need to know exactly what you want to do with my [bio-specimen] samples. Where is it going to be   stored? Are you going to watch it 24 hours a day?”
•	Consent forms
	“It was too much for one hour… I can’t do it. I have to take it [consent] home, read it carefully then.”
•	Translation
	“And sometimes they put, for example, a translation from English to Spanish and it sounds like… it’s not   in English but also not in Spanish. I can’t tell what they want to collect from me.”
•	Staff from community
	“There are people in the community that help, churches and community leaders. They can show   investigators the ropes. Especially with complicated studies that ask for [biomarker] samples.”
•	Appropriate presentations
	“If it’s for seniors it needs to involve seniors who reflect the group that you’re appealing to because it’s   very easy to dismiss it if they can’t relate… I think a graphic or a little movie, we’d like to see to really   grasp. So that helps a lot.”
•	Meeting investigator/team
	“If they are asking for a lot, like my blood samples, I would be nice to meet the investigators and team   before. Who exactly is going to be drawing my blood or collecting my saliva sample?”
•	Community leaders
	“We have ministers and black community leaders that you could contact and maybe hold a seminar on   biomarkers studies.” “If you talk to the ministers, they know what’s going on in the community.” “I think   they should be familiar where they’re coming and who’s calling the shots.”