Table 2 Aboriginal Birth Cohort: strategies used to address locating challenges

To find participants

Rural

Key significant people identified in each large community and employed

List of cohort members thought to be in community sent to them requesting confirmation of participant presence

Urban

Door to door visits yielded best results

Letter useful

To positively identify participants

Multiple personal identifiers including unique hospital number, name, sex, date of birth and community residence at time of birth

Showing photograph to community members

Recording of aliases on spread sheet

Key Aboriginal community assistants employed with local knowledge of community movements

Visits to remote communities with strong kinship ties scheduled close together

To use personal images

All participants sign individual consents for image photograph to be taken and for photograph to be used for promotion, publicity and tracing