Effectiveness of incentivized peer referral to increase enrollment in a community-based chlamydia screening and treatment study among young Black men

Abstract

Purpose Incentivized peer referral (IPR) has been shown to be an effective method of recruitment for men who have sex with men but has not been studied extensively in men who have sex with women (MSW), particularly among Black MSW. We aimed to determine if IPR was more effective than uncompensated peer referral for recruiting young Black men into a community STI screening study.

Methods We used data from the Check It study, a chlamydia (Ct) screening and treatment program for young Black men ages 15-26 in New Orleans, LA. Enrollment was compared before and after IPR was implemented using Multiple Series Analysis (MTSA). IPR was introduced to increase recruitment that had been severely diminished because of the COVID-19 shutdown.

Results Of 1527 men enrolled, 1399 (91.6%) were enrolled pre-IPR and 128 (8.4%) were enrolled post-IPR. The percentage of men referred by a friend or peer was higher in the post-IPR period than in the pre-IPR period (45.7% vs. 19.7%, p<0.001). Post-pandemic, we observed a statistically significant increase of 2.007 more recruitments (p=0.044, 95% CI (0.0515, 3.964)) at the start of the post-IPR era, compared to the pre-IPR era. Overall, we also observed a trending increase in recruitments in the IPR era relative to the pre-IPR era (0.0174 recruitments/week, p=0.285, 95% CI (−0.0146, 0.0493)) with less recruitment decay in the post-IPR compared to pre-IPR.

Conclusions IPR may be an effective means of engaging young Black men in community based STI research and prevention programs, particularly when clinic access is limited.

Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

Clinical Trial

NCT03098329

Funding Statement

This study was funded by the US National Institutes of Health National Institute of Child Health and Human Development/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases [R01HD086794].

Author Declarations

I confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained.

Yes

The details of the IRB/oversight body that provided approval or exemption for the research described are given below:

IRB of Tulane University gave ethical approval for this work.

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Yes

I understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance).

Yes

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Yes

Footnotes

Disclosures: The authors have no conflicts of interest or additional disclosures.

Clinical Trials registry site and number: Clinicaltrials.gov identifier NCT03098329.

Data Availability

All data produced in the present study are available upon reasonable request to the authors

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