Enhancing Participation in Alzheimer’s Research: A Comparative Study of Community Health Worker -Led and Digital Recruitment Strategies in Hispanic/Latino Communities

Digital recruitment can expand geographical reach and reduce recruitment timelines. Community health worker (CHW)-led recruitment has shown to build trust, increase knowledge, and link patients to healthcare services and research participation. However, few studies quantify how recruitment strategies relate to research outcomes. To explore associations between recruitment strategies and participant demographics and memory disorder knowledge using a survey with a sample of Hispanic/Latino participants. We conducted a cross-sectional comparative analysis of recruitment and survey responses in a survey study targeting U.S. Hispanic/Latino individuals using both digital and CHW-led recruitment strategies. We compare participant demographics and knowledge of memory disorders using chi-squared tests for categorical variables and t-tests for continuous variables. We recruited 834 participants across both strategies. Recruitment strategy was associated with educational background, basic Alzheimer’s disease (AD) knowledge, and misconceptions. In the CHW-recruited group, a higher proportion had less than a high school diploma (29.41% vs. 5.13% in the digital group (p < .001). CHW-recruited participants also scored lower on the Basic Knowledge of AD survey (19.89 vs. 21.85, p < 0.001) and held more misconceptions, such as believing AD is a normal part of aging (M = 2.12, SD = 1.04, p < .001). Findings from this study suggest that CHW-led recruitment might be more effective at engaging a greater proportion of individuals from traditionally underrepresented groups, such as those of Hispanic/Latino heritage reporting lower educational attainment, and Spanish-language preference, compared to digital-led recruitment. These insights underscore the importance of diversifying recruitment strategies to meet the specific needs of underrepresented demographic groups and can inform experimental research to strengthen recruitment science.