• Shena Gazaway, Marie Bakitas, Felicia Underwood, Christiana Ekelem, Marlee Duffie, Sheila McCormick, Vantrice Heard, Audrey Colvin, and Ronit Elk.
• School of Nursing, University of Alabama at Birmingham (S.G., M.B.,), Birmingham, AL, USA; Center for Palliative and Supportive Care, University of Alabama at Birmingham (S.G., M.B., F.U., C.E., M.D., S.M., V.H., R.E.), Birmingham, AL, USA. Electronic address: gazaways@uab.edu.
• J Pain Symptom Manage. 2023 Jun 1; 65 (6): e757e764e757-e764.

ContextLow recruitment rates in palliative care clinical trials amongst Black and rural individuals have been attributed to lack of trust and procedural barriers. Community engagement strategies have increased clinical trial participation of under-represented populations.ObjectiveDescribe a successful community-engaged recruitment strategy in an ongoing multi-site randomized clinical trial (RCT).Study Design And MethodsUsing community-based participatory research principles and input from a prior pilot study's community advisory group (CAG), we designed a novel recruitment strategy for Community Tele-Pal, a three-site, culturally based palliative care tele-consult RCT for Black and White seriously ill inpatients and their family caregivers. Local site CAGs helped design and implement a recruitment strategy in which a CAG member accompanied the study coordinators to introduce the study to eligible patients. Initially, CAG members could not accompany study coordinators in person due to pandemic restrictions. Hence, they created videos of themselves introducing the study, just as they would have done in person. We examined outcomes to date by the three recruitment methods and race.ResultsOf the 2879 patients screened, 228 were eligible and approached. Overall, the proportions of patients who consented 102 (44.7%) vs. not consented 126 (55.3%) were similar by race- White (consented= 75 [44.1%]) vs; Black (consented = 27 [46.6%]). Proportionally, consent rates favored CAG-involved methods: coordinator only- 47 approached and 13 (12.7%) consented vs. coordinator/CAG video-105 approached and 60 (58.8%) consented.ConclusionA novel community-enhanced recruitment strategy demonstrated the potential to increase clinical trial participation from historically under-represented populations.Copyright © 2023 American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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