Project: Examining reproductive and sexual health during the transition to adulthood

Community college students make up almost half of U.S. undergraduate students, but relatively little research, especially longitudinal research, has focused on this population. This is especially concerning given that young adults attending community college experience unique barriers to accessing reproductive healthcare and are in a developmental stage when they are at heightened risk of experiencing poor reproductive health outcomes. They are less likely than students at 4-year institutions to have access to reproductive health care and education and are more likely to experience unintended pregnancy and contract a sexually transmitted infection. As part of R01HD099134, we recruited a large sample of young (18- and 19-year-old) community college students from across the U.S. (N=1647). To obtain this sample, we successfully developed and employed a rigorous recruitment and verification protocol that included: forging partnerships with key stakeholders at community colleges; employing intensive online and in-person student recruitment strategies; and the development of a thorough verification process to verify participant age and college enrollment status to ensure a high-quality sample. The aim of this R56 project is to enhance retention of this sample of young adults so that longitudinal research can be conducted with this sample later into young adulthood. Young adults are in a development stage marked by transition with respect to education, job status, relationships, and living arrangements, making it difficult to recruit and retain this population as research participants. Our goals in this project were to: 1) increase the number of participants that have opted to receive study information via text messaging, in addition to the standard email communication; 2) update and maintain accurate contact information of participants; 3) reengage participants who have previously missed one or more data collections; and, 4) gather data to better understand how to recruit and engage this group of participants in future research studies. We reengaged participants and recruited them into the retention study through several means (e.g., email/text invitations, personal follow-ups, and mailed invitation). Once recruited, the goals of this retention study were achieved through sending relevant text/email engagement messages to participants in the form of infographics, short videos, etc. There was also an opportunity in two of the messages for participants to complete a survey to provide feedback on 1) interest in participating in future research activities; 2) ways to facilitate study participation/ barriers to completing data collection time points; and 3) topics of interest for future engagement messages. Findings from this project advance the field of college health by using a data-driven approach to identify effective ways to recruit and retain a sample of young adult community college students for the purpose of longitudinal research.