Lessons Learned in Recruiting for a Community Project on COVID-19 Vaccination Messaging Within a Hispanic Population

While COVID-19 has disproportionately affected U.S. Hispanic/Latino communities, research on the impacts of the pandemic is complicated by multiple systemic, historical, and individual-level factors that suppress these groups' participation and response rates. COVID-19 vaccination is one public health tool available to mitigate the health risks, yet vaccination rates are lower than desired, prompting a critical need to understand perceptions related to COVID-19 vaccines. We report on recruitment approaches used within a larger community initiative to understand the local Hispanic population's perceptions of COVID-19 vaccines and how these can inform health message design. Based on the PEN-3 model, and communication infrastructure theory focused on engaging Hispanic individuals for health-related research, our team enacted a multifaceted strategy to recruit participants for focus groups and a larger-scale survey to explore beliefs, attitudes, values, and perceptions of the COVID-19 vaccines as well as test vaccination messages. Meso-level agents such as community partners served as enablers in recruiting participants and offered us spaces to interact with potential participants, thus serving as communication hotspots. Micro-level agents played a key role of positive nurturers in helping participants navigate the survey by providing digital literacy support. We report on specific strategies used and challenges faced in the recruitment process. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.