It Could Be a Pearl to You: Exploring PEARLS with Hard-to-Reach Populations

The sponsors of the PEARLS (Program to Encourage Active, Rewarding Lives) study, a home-based depression-care management program for elders, partnered with three social service organizations in the Seattle area to identify hard-to-reach populations, barriers to reaching them, and strategies for improving recruitment and retention. Based on semistructured interviews with study staff and former PEARLS participants, several themes emerged, including trust, cultural appropriateness, meet them where they are, and framing/reframing. Veterans, African Americans, Filipino men, other immigrants and English-language learners, old-older adults, rural communities, and people with limited education were identified as hard to reach.

Steinman L, Hammerback K, Snowden M. It could be a pearl to you: Exploring recruitment and retention of the Program to Encourage Active, Rewarding Lives (PEARLS) with hard-to-reach populations. The Gerontologist 2015;55(4):667-676.