Recruiting inactive older adults to a neighborhood walking trial: The SHAPE project

In research on elder physical activity and health, emphasis has predominantly centered on outcome, with little attention given to an examination of which recruitment strategies were most effective and why. This article reports on the strategies and methods used in recruiting participants for the Senior Health And Physical Exercise (SHAPE) project, a randomized trial of neighborhood walking. A multifaceted, staged protocol of computerized telephoning followed by direct mail and personal contact methods was employed to recruit a representative sample of 582 elderly participants (M = 73.99 years, S.D. = 6.25; 69% female) from 56 metropolitan neighborhoods in Portland, OR. Significant variations in distribution were found both between conditions (chi(2) = 117.81, df = 1, P<.001) and within the walking condition (chi(2) = 91.77, df = 4, P<.001), indicating that overall women and men tended to respond differentially to the different methods. Details and evaluation of recruitment strategies, costs, and implications of the findings for recruiting older adults to community-based physical activity programs are discussed. (C) 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.