Associate Director, Epidemiology AbbVie Inc. Somerville, United States
Background: CONTACT was a prospective, longitudinal, community-based epidemiological study designed to improve understanding of population-level drivers of COVID-19 risk, immunity and other long-term characteristics related to SARS-CoV-2 infection. Participant recruitment and continuous engagement in the community was deemed crucial for the success of the study.
Objectives: To characterize patient recruitment and engagement strategy used in a community-based epidemiological study and highlight the effect of a patient-centric design on study participant retention and data completeness.
Methods: Participants living or working in Lake County, IL were recruited between November 2020 and January 2021. Both physical leaflets and internet-based social-media advertising were used in the campaign during the recruitment period. To minimize participant drop-off due to data entry burden, an easily accessible web-based study portal was used for eligibility screening, collecting informed consent, demographic information and biweekly surveys focused on occupational exposure, COVID-19 vaccination status, and behavioral factors. Participants provided nasal and blood serum specimens in-person for molecular (RT-PCR) and serologic (IgG) testing to detect current or previous SARS-CoV-2 infection at baseline and quarterly follow-up visits 3-, 6-, and 9-Months. Active participant engagement activities included two e-mail reminders sent to participants before each follow-up visit, as well as interpretation, communication and dissemination of study findings. Laboratory results were provided directly to participants, with direct phone communication from the clinic when a positive result was found. Advertisement campaign for recruitment and all general study communications to participants were approved by the IRB.
Results: In total, 1267 participants were eligible for the study and completed the baseline questionnaire in the three months´ recruitment period. Of these, 79.6% (n = 1008) completed baseline SARS-CoV-2 molecular and serology testing per the study protocol and were included in the final analysis. High proportions of the participants in the baseline population (81%, 84%, and 77%) responded the questionnaire at 3-, 6, and 9M, respectively. The proportion of participants remaining engaged was high with less than 25% of loss to follow-up throughout the study.
Conclusions: In this community-based study, targeted direct-to-participant advertising, web-based data collection and clinic-based specimen collection achieved rapid recruitment of the study population, allowed for active engagement with participants and enabled considerable completeness in long-term follow-up.
.jpg "Yizhou Ye, PhD, MS photo")
