Recruiting Diverse Populations

The new Research Action Group for Equity (RAGE) program was created to provide support and infrastructure for UCSF researchers to diversify their study populations. We offer consultations and resources and promote other initiatives essential to ensuring that the research enterprise more equitably promotes well-being.

Funders and publishers are increasingly emphasizing and even requiring diverse study samples. The NIH defines “special populations” as groups that need to be better represented in research, which include:

  • Racial/ethnic minorities
  • People age 18 or less and age 65 or older

The RAGE program offers consultation on how to partner directly with these populations to remove barriers and increase research participation. We are also developing capacity to support recruitment of LGBTQ+ populations. Consultants can be faculty researchers, staff, and community leaders experienced with and deeply connected to these populations. Consultation may include how to plan and budget, how to connect with relevant communities, and how to develop recruitment and retention materials and methods to optimize recruitment of diverse populations.

RAGE works closely with CTSI’s Participant Recruitment Program to provide a range of recruitment support, including help with EHR and social media recruitment. Cultural and linguistic expertise as well as language translation assistance is available. We encourage obtaining this consultation as early in the research planning process as possible. Recognizing that consultation is only one needed activity to recruit diverse participants, and that diverse research participation is only one element needed for health equity, we also address other elements, including:

  • Promoting research workforce diversity at the staff, trainee, and faculty levels
  • Promoting health equity research
  • Addressing institutional and system changes to overcome structural barriers to diversity, equity, and inclusion in the research enterprise
  • Ensuring that all research trainees have capacity to address diverse recruitment

The RAGE program is deeply connected to CTSI’s Community Engagement & Health Policy and IMPACT programs.