Recruitment strategies for predominantly low-income, multi-racial/ethnic children and parents to 3-year community-based intervention trials: Childhood Obesity Prevention and Treatment Research (COPTR) Consortium.

Background: The recruitment of participants into community-based randomized controlled trials studying childhood obesity is often challenging, especially from low-income racial/ethnical minorities and when long-term participant commitments are required. This paper describes strategies used to recruit and enroll predominately low-income racial/ethnic minority parents and children into the Childhood Obesity Prevention and Treatment Research (COPTR) consortium.

Methods: The COPTR consortium has run four independent 3-year, multi-level (individual, family, school, clinic, and community) community-based randomized controlled trials.

The other nursing shortage: a regional collaboration to address the shortage of nursing faculty.

A regional collaborative of one major hospital system and nine schools of nursing has addressed the critical shortage of nursing faculty in Northeast Ohio. This model of institutional collaboration is preparing expert nurse clinicians from the hospital nursing staff to assume clinical faculty roles in regional schools of nursing while maintaining their primary role as clinical staff. The model included the development of a recruitment campaign, a uniform application process, an online database, faculty orientation programs, and continuing faculty development opportunities.