Effectiveness of Incentivized Peer Referral to Increase Enrollment in a Community-Based Chlamydia Screening and Treatment Study Among Young Black Men

Abstract

Purpose: Incentivized peer referral (IPR) has been shown to be an effective method of recruitment for men who have sex with men but has not been studied extensively in men who have sex with women (MSW), particularly among Black MSW. We aimed to determine if IPR was more effective than uncompensated peer referral for recruiting young Black men into a community STI screening study. Methods: We used data from the Check It study, a chlamydia (Ct) screening and treatment program for young Black men ages 15-26 in New Orleans, LA. Enrollment was compared before and after IPR was implemented using Multiple Series Analysis (MTSA). IPR was introduced to increase recruitment that had been severely diminished because of the COVID-19 shutdown. Results: Of 1527 men enrolled, 1399 (91.6%) were enrolled pre-IPR and 128 (8.4%) were enrolled postIPR. The percentage of men referred by a friend or peer was higher in the post-IPR period than in the pre-IPR period (45.7% vs. 19.7%, p<0.001). Post-pandemic, we observed a statistically significant increase of 2.007 more recruitments (p=0.044, 95% CI (0.0515, 3.964)) at the start of the post-IPR era, compared to the pre-IPR era. Overall, we also observed a trending increase in recruitments in the IPR era relative to the pre-IPR era (0.0174 recruitments/week, p=0.285, 95% CI (-0.0146, 0.0493)) with less recruitment decay in the post-IPR compared to pre-IPR. Conclusions: IPR may be an effective means of engaging young Black men in community based STI research and prevention programs, particularly when clinic access is limited.