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Table 3 Main recommendations

From: Barriers and recruitment strategies for precarious status migrants in Montreal, Canada

(1) Identify recruitment strategies

• Interview key informants in the setting (focus groups and qualitative interviews)

• Compile geographic information on the relevant recruitment areas

• Conduct field studies to identify specific recruitment strategies for hard-to-reach communities

• Use a variety of recruitment methods (social marketing, venue-based approaches, snowball sampling)

(2) Recruit interviewers

• Select a team that is diversified in terms of culture, migratory pathways, and gender

• Hire interviewers who are connected to the network of uninsured migrants through their involvement in organizations or mutual support groups

• Select interviewers who are experienced in connecting with vulnerable populations

• Select interviewers who are familiar with the factors associated with migratory status

(3) Manage the project

• Encourage interviewers’ empowerment (by involving and consulting them)

• Encourage the sharing of information and know-how among experienced and less experienced interviewers through regular informal and formal meetings

• Set up a project coordination that is accessible and responsive to interviewers to foster relationships of trust

• Encourage researchers’ involvement in field outings

• Encourage regular reflexive meetings among all members of the project team

(4) Build relationships of trust with community members

• Establish collaborations with community organizations / places of worship / other organizations before starting recruitment

• Develop a strategy to identify the team in the field and ensure the project’s visibility in community media

• Ensure ongoing involvement and personalized follow-up with community members, transparency, and sharing of research results

• Use key informants and “gate-keepers” in each community to reach the target population

(5) Adapt strategies to the target communities and individuals

• Give preference to cultural pairing for recruitment and let participants choose the interviewer with whom they would prefer to complete the questionnaire

• Administer the questionnaire in the presence of an interviewer who can restate and explain certain questions when they are not understood and verify the consistency of the participant’s responses

• Involve interviewers in selecting recruitment strategies, developing the questionnaire and the project information materials, and translating recruitment materials

(6) Take ethical issues into account in the recruitment

• Put participants in contact with community resources suited to their needs

• Do not use words such as ‘study’ or ‘survey’ in the information materials but emphasize the help that can be provided by the project

• Do not emphasize monetary compensation

• Reassure participants by explaining to them that their data will remain anonymous and confidential

• Train interviewers in the ethical and intercultural aspects of recruitment, as well as in the objectives and potential benefits of the study