Outreach, Recruitment, and Engagement Core

Washington University, Saint Louis MO

Investigators

Linked publications, trials & patents

Abstract

REVISED ABSTRACT: The Outreach Recruitment and Engagement (ORE) Core is the primary link between the Knight ADRC and its research participants, their families and caregivers, professional and medical groups, and multiple partner organizations. The ORE Core provides education on Alzheimer disease and related dementias (ADRD) through lectures, local educational events, and large national workshops and symposia. These activities are designed to raise awareness and interest in Knight ADRC research, and to provide ADRD-related education to the lay public and professionals. Our activities are informed by feedback and input from current and potential participants, the public, and partner organizations. The ORE Core’s overarching mission is to engage current and potential participants as partners in research, while providing ADRD resources to the public and health care professionals. Given our catchment area, the ORE Core emphasizes increasing knowledge and interest in research for those at higher risk of dementia in the St. Louis metro and surrounding areas. We work closely with the Health Disparities Engagement (HDE) Core to ensure our approaches reach people at higher risk of ADRD. The ORE Core has four primary aims: 1. The ORE Core will recruit and retain participants into the Clinical Core’s Biomarker Cohort, including those at higher risk of dementia. We aim to recruit 30 new participants per year into the Biomarker Cohort in collaboration with partner organizations. We will increase our options for participation by allowing those who do not want to, or are unable to, undergo biomarker studies such as imaging and lumbar punctures through a project called COMPASS in our affiliated Healthy Aging and Senile Dementia (HASD) grant that does not require these invasive procedures. 2. The ORE Core will provide education and raise awareness of Knight ADRC research, healthy aging, and ADRD in the Saint Louis catchment area among lay individuals and health professionals. 3. The ORE Core will evaluate the impact of initiatives designed to increase recruitment and retention of research participants including return of research results and financial compensation. Aided by our newly created tracking system (Aim 4), we will determine return on investment of outreach activities and assess high and low yield activities. 4. The ORE Core will implement a new robust tracking system to enable ongoing evaluation of the effectiveness of ORE Core outreach and educational activities. This cross-Core collaboration is led by the Data Management & Statistics Core.