Reengaging Rural Research Participants After Two Decades: The NC Life Study's Recruitment Challenges in an Era of Funding Uncertainty.
6 affiliations
- 1Department of Health Behavior, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
- 2Center for Behavioral Health and Well-being Research, RTI International.
- 3Department of Sociology, University of California.
- 4School of Education, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
- 5Department of Urban Global Public Health, Rutgers University.
- 6Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Yale University.
Abstract
The North Carolina Life (NC Life, R01DA056264, MPI: O'Shea and Taggart) study is a 20-year follow-up to a groundbreaking adolescent study (R01DA013459, PI: Ennett), which examined the health behaviors of over 8,000 racially diverse adolescents in rural North Carolina communities during the early 2000s. This extension study aimed to leverage the initial R01 NIH investment by investigating health trajectories from adolescence through emerging adulthood, with a particular focus on how exposure to neighborhood-, health system-, social network-, and school-level structural racism influences these pathways. In April 2025, with one year of funding remaining, NC Life's NIH support was terminated because it "no longer effectuates agency priorities." This termination occurred after a considerable amount of time, effort, and funding had been invested into the complex process of re-contacting and enrolling thousands of rural participants, many of whom had relocated, changed contact information, or had no memory of their original study participation some twenty years prior. This paper presents an analysis of our recruitment methodology and outcomes including a variety of dynamic active and passive recruitment strategies to reengage research-hesitant rural communities. We conclude by detailing the cost of what has been lost by funding termination, reinstatement, and overall uncertainty. Our findings offer critical insights for the growing number of studies that may face similar reengagement challenges following termination or other extended study interruptions. The premature termination of NC Life represents a lost opportunity to advance understanding of how structural racism shapes health outcomes across the life course in understudied rural populations.
Related
- STRONG prehabilitation before elective ventral hernia repair: Learnings from recruitment challenges in a randomized controlled trial
- Return of research results to participants in longitudinal cohort studies in health research
- Using secure WhatsApp-based digital recruitment as an intervention in prostate cancer research with black men
- Four decades of under-representation: a qualitative study to gain young adult insights to transform inclusive recruitment in clinical research
- Challenges and opportunities in emotion dynamics research: an interdisciplinary perspective
BibTeX
@article{hutchens2026reengaging,
title = {{Reengaging Rural Research Participants After Two Decades: The NC Life Study's Recruitment Challenges in an Era of Funding Uncertainty.}},
author = {Emily Forrest Hutchens and Marina Pearsall and Robert Faris and Alberto Valido Delgado and Liann Tucker and Nisha Gottfredson O'Shea and Tamara Taggart},
journal = {Behavioral medicine (Washington, D.C.)},
year = {2026},
month = jul,
doi = {10.1080/08964289.2026.2653521},
url = {https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42904417},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Reengaging Rural Research Participants After Two Decades: The NC Life Study's Recruitment Challenges in an Era of Funding Uncertainty.
AU - Emily Forrest Hutchens
AU - Marina Pearsall
AU - Robert Faris
AU - Alberto Valido Delgado
AU - Liann Tucker
AU - Nisha Gottfredson O'Shea
AU - Tamara Taggart
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/07/01
JO - Behavioral medicine (Washington, D.C.)
DO - 10.1080/08964289.2026.2653521
UR - https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42904417
AB - The North Carolina Life (NC Life, R01DA056264, MPI: O'Shea and Taggart) study is a 20-year follow-up to a groundbreaking adolescent study (R01DA013459, PI: Ennett), which examined the health behaviors of over 8,000 racially diverse adolescents in rural North Carolina communities during the early 2000s. This extension study aimed to leverage the initial R01 NIH investment by investigating health trajectories from adolescence through emerging adulthood, with a particular focus on how exposure to neighborhood-, health system-, social network-, and school-level structural racism influences these pathways. In April 2025, with one year of funding remaining, NC Life's NIH support was terminated because it "no longer effectuates agency priorities." This termination occurred after a considerable amount of time, effort, and funding had been invested into the complex process of re-contacting and enrolling thousands of rural participants, many of whom had relocated, changed contact information, or had no memory of their original study participation some twenty years prior. This paper presents an analysis of our recruitment methodology and outcomes including a variety of dynamic active and passive recruitment strategies to reengage research-hesitant rural communities. We conclude by detailing the cost of what has been lost by funding termination, reinstatement, and overall uncertainty. Our findings offer critical insights for the growing number of studies that may face similar reengagement challenges following termination or other extended study interruptions. The premature termination of NC Life represents a lost opportunity to advance understanding of how structural racism shapes health outcomes across the life course in understudied rural populations.
SN - 0896-4289
SN - 1940-4026
ER -