TNN Boosts COVID-19 Research Participation
Although more than 250,000 Chicagoans have been officially diagnosed with COVID-19, a team of Northwestern University researchers has found the actual number of infected individuals is likely closer to 1 million.
The multidisciplinary team of scientists, including biological anthropologist Thomas McDade, and Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine investigators Richard D’Aquila, Brian Mustanski, Elizabeth McNally, and Alexis Demonbreun, relied on a new study to test for SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) antibodies. The method requires drops of blood collected from a simple finger prick that study participants can complete from the comfort of their homes.
“Regardless of if a person was healthy or sick, we invited participants to share a few drops of blood and complete an online survey to learn how COVID-19 was spreading throughout the community,” says Rana Saber, director of Northwestern’s Institute for Sexual and Gender Minority Health and Wellbeing’s Research Application Design and Development Team.
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Among their recruitment methods, the team of researchers — all members of the Northwestern University Clinical and Translational Sciences (NUCATS) Institute — uploaded their study to The New Normal, a special online recruitment portal involving nine top universities and hospitals.
After matching with a set of individuals, the team asked potential participants to complete a screener before inviting those eligible to participate in the study. Ninety percent of those invited completed the required steps to take part in the research.
The New Normal proved to be a very convenient recruitment tool that allowed us to recruit in a cost-effective — in terms of both labor and funds — manner, and helped boost the profile of our work in a really valuable way.”
In October, the team released preliminary research results showing that almost 20 percent of people tested — from 10 zip codes across the city — exhibited coronavirus antibodies. The figure was considerably higher than the five percent positivity rate reported by the Chicago Department of Public Health at the time.
Antibody tests are useful for determining prior exposure to a virus, like the one that causes COVID-19, and the test used by the Northwestern researchers is better equipped to reveal antibodies.
“The New Normal website has a very clean design and it was easy to use,” says Saber. “Most of our studies at the Institute for Sexual and Gender Minority Health and Wellbeing are eHealth focused. So, online recruitment portals, like TNN, hold the potential to be very valuable in the future.
As research continues to reactivate throughout Chicago, the NUCATS Institute has supported Northwestern’s access to The New Normal recruitment portal. The platform uses lay-friendly language, and allows for users to express interest and match with research studies based on a study's inclusion and exclusion criteria.
"The New Normal proved to be a very convenient recruitment tool that allowed us to recruit in a cost-effective — in terms of both labor and funds — manner, and helped boost the profile of our work in a really valuable way," says Gregory Phillips II, PhD, assistant professor of Medical Social Sciences and Preventive Medicine in the Division of Epidemiology. Phillips' research team used TNN to study the social, physiological, psychological, and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on sexual and gender minority populations, and people living with HIV.
Learn more about TNN at bethenewnormal.org and add your study here.
Interested in participating in a COVID-19 study? Click here.
This project is supported by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) through Grant Number UL1TR002389 that supports the Institute for Translational Medicine (ITM); Grant Number UL1TR001422 that supports NUCATS; Grant Number UL1TR002003 that supports the Center for Clinical and Translational Science (CCTS); and Grant Number UL1TR002240 that supports the Michigan Institute for Clinical & Health Research (MICHR). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH.
Written by Roger Anderson
