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Recruitment of African American Churches to Participate in Cancer Early Detection Interventions: A Community Perspective

Journal of Religion and Health volume 57, pages 751–761 (2018)Cite this article

Abstract

This article describes the process used to engage and recruit African American churches to serve as participants in two multi-year behavioural cancer research interventions from a community perspective. Community-based organizations used purposive sampling in engaging and recruiting advisory panel members and churches to participate in these interventions. Trust, respect, open dialogue with participants, and commitment to address community health needs contributed to successful engagement and recruitment of African American churches to serve as participants in these cancer research projects. Our results may help others engage and recruit African American churches to participate in future interventions.

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Acknowledgements

We extend thanks to Dr. Bettye Muwwakkil and Mr. Ralph Williams of Access to Wholistic and Productive Living for their active role in church recruitment for M-PACT. We also thank Ms. Koko Barnes of Community Ministry of Prince George’s County for her support of church recruitment for M-PACT. We acknowledge and thank all the churches, pastors, church leaders, community health advisors, and volunteers that participated and supported these two interventions to educate men and women about prostate, breast, and colorectal cancers.

Funding

The M-PACT study was funded by a grant from the American Cancer Society (RGST-10-113-01-CPPB) and the Project HEAL study was funded by a grant from the National Cancer Institute (R01CA147313).

Author information

Affiliations

  1. Community Ministry of Prince George’s County, Post Office Box 250, Upper Marlboro, MD, 20773, USA

    Jimmie L. Slade, Alma Savoy & Roxanne L. Carter

  2. Department of Behavioral and Community Health, School of Public Health, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

    Cheryl L. Holt, Ebony Toussaint, Darlene R. Saunders & Sherie Lou Santos

  3. Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Janice Bowie

  4. Scheirer Consulting, Princeton, NJ, USA

    Mary Ann Scheirer

Authors
  1. Jimmie L. Slade
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  2. Cheryl L. Holt
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  3. Janice Bowie
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  4. Mary Ann Scheirer
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  5. Ebony Toussaint
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  6. Darlene R. Saunders
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  7. Alma Savoy
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  8. Roxanne L. Carter
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  9. Sherie Lou Santos
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jimmie L. Slade.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed Consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the studies.

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Slade, J.L., Holt, C.L., Bowie, J. et al. Recruitment of African American Churches to Participate in Cancer Early Detection Interventions: A Community Perspective. J Relig Health 57, 751–761 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-018-0586-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-018-0586-2

Keywords

  • African American churches
  • Cancer research
  • Recruitment
  • Community-based participatory research