Study Design
Assessing Equity in Pediatric Research Recruitment Using MyChart Amanda Luff* Amanda Luff Cheryl Lefaiver Huma Khan Darci Phillips Ileah Rios Aashima Chopra Yaojie Wang Rachel Zmora Rupali Gandhi Norrina Bai Allen
Background: Traditional recruitment methods often fail to reach diverse populations, limiting generalizability of findings and access to participation. Recruitment is especially challenging with special populations, such as children. The MyChart Recruitment Module offers a streamlined approach to engage pediatric patients and their guardians, but the representativeness of the populations reached is unclear.
Methods: This analysis included pediatric patients, ages 0-18, in a large Midwestern healthcare system contacted via the MyChart Recruitment Module to participate in a study. Interested guardians received a unique code to enroll children using an external platform. We assessed characteristics of children who received recruitment messages, those who engaged with messages (responded interested/not interested), and those who enrolled. We evaluated children’s sex, age, race/ethnicity, language preference, and neighborhood traits (median income, adult educational attainment). We used log binomial regression to calculate adjusted risk ratios for 1) engaging with the MyChart message, and 2) among those who engaged, enrolling in the study.
Results: The MyChart message was sent to 123,218 patients, of whom 7,308 engaged (4,709 interested, 2,599 not interested) and 1,313 enrolled. Non-Hispanic Black patients were equally likely to engage as non-Hispanic white patients (RR 1.05, 95% CI 0.98, 1.13) but less likely to enroll (RR 0.75, 95% CI 0.63, 0.89). As age increased, engagement and enrollment decreased. Sex, language preference and neighborhood income were associated with engagement but not enrollment.
Conclusion: The MyChart Recruitment Module is an effective tool to recruit pediatric patients for research and should be used in conjunction with other strategies to ensure equity in research participation. Care should be paid to strategies used at both recruitment and enrollment touchpoints to ensure participation in research is accessible for patients of all backgrounds.