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 |