Engagement of Participants to Enable a Health System Biobank Resource

A widely representative health system cohort with longitudinal specimen collection can serve as an efficient clinical biobank resource for multiple studies. Because the full scope of a health system cohort can include both health care workers and patients, enrollment and biobanking efforts may be designed to engage these specific participant populations.

For a multisite health system cohort that initially enrolled health care workers and then expanded to enroll patients, we evaluated the relative success of initiatives that specifically targeted enrollment of various health care worker and patient populations. We also compared enrollment rate success based on engagement type (active vs. passive), modality (in-person vs. virtual), and venue (clinical-based or community-based). Across each method of engagement, we compared the conversion rate from study consent to collected biospecimen.

For recruitment activities involving health care workers, enrollment rates varied based on active versus passive (62% vs. 0.8%) and in-person versus virtual (9.6% vs. 0.8%) engagement as well as clinical-based versus community-based (65% vs. 3.9%) venues (p < 0.001 for all). For health care workers, the overall conversion rate from consent to biospecimen collection was 87%. For recruitment activities involving patients, enrollment rates also varied based on active versus passive (53% vs. 0.8%) and in-person versus virtual (62% vs. 0.8%) engagement, as well as clinical-based versus community-based (70% vs. 41%) venues (p < 0.001 for all). For patients, the overall conversion rate from consent to biospecimen collection was 75%.

For studies aiming to build a biorepository resource involving both health care worker and patient participants, the active rather than passive engagement methods are likely to achieve not only a higher rate of contact to consented enrollment but also a higher rate of conversion from consent to biospecimen collection. Further studies are needed to guide resource planning around biorepository building capacity for specific study designs.