Primary Submission Category: Health equity
Demographic predictors of consent and continued participation in a longitudinal birth cohort study
Authors: Veronica Chacko Audrey Urquhart Emily Leydet Ashley Redding Laura Susick Christine Cole Johnson Sara Santarossa Andrew Bossick
Presenting Author: Veronica Chacko*
Birth cohort study findings rely heavily on participant commitment and follow-up. We examined the associations of maternal factors with consent and continuing participation (CP) using data from the Research Enterprise to Advance Children’s Health (REACH) prospective cohort (01/01/’21-01/29/’23).
Unadjusted and adjusted Poisson regression with log link and robust standard errors was used to estimate the risk ratio (RR) between demographics with consent and CP. Potential confounders included race (Black/White), ethnicity (non-Hispanic/Hispanic), marital status (married/not married), age (18-19/20-29/30-39/≥40), gravidity (1/>1), and parity (0/>0) in the consent models, in addition to gestational age (weeks) at consent and total participation length (weeks) in the CP models.
Analyses included 783 (72.3%) Black and 300 (27.7%) White consenting women and 225 (77.1%) Black and 67 (22.9%) White women CP. In unadjusted models, White women (RR 0.78, 95% CI 0.61-0.99) and those aged 20-29 (RR 0.77, CI 0.63-0.94) were less likely to consent and those 18-19 (RR 2.39, CI 1.76-3.23) were more likely to consent. White women and those with higher gestational age at consent were more likely to be CP (RR 1.15, CI: 1.02-1.31 1.05, CI 1.01-1.09) and those aged 20-29 were less likely to CP (RR 0.87, CI 0.76-0.99). After adjustment, race was no longer associated with consent (RR 0.78, CI 0.59-1.02) or CP (RR 1.02, CI 0.87-1.19). Those aged 18-19 were still more likely to consent (RR 2.49, CI 1.72-3.59), and those aged 20-29 were less likely to consent (RR 0.40, CI 0.28-1.28); CP among those aged 20-29 (RR 0.77, CI 0.59-1.00) was attenuated. No association was observed for gestational age after adjustment (RR 1.04, CI 0.98-1.08).
Current REACH recruitment may be most affected by maternal age. Efforts targeted towards tailored age-based participation strategies while maintaining demonstrated equitable recruitment and retention by other demographics should be prioritized.