Engaging adults in organized physical activity: a scoping review of recruitment strategies

Abstract

Summary Scaling up established physical activity (PA) opportunities for broader population reach requires practitioners to carefully consider strategies implemented to recruit and attract new participants to their PA programs. This scoping review examines the effectiveness of recruitment strategies for engaging adults in organized (established and sustained) PA programs. Electronic databases were searched for articles published between March 1995 and September 2022. Qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods papers were included. Recruitment strategies were assessed against Foster et al. (Recruiting participants to walking intervention studies: a systematic review. Int J Behav Nutr Phys Act 2011;8:137–137.) assessment of quality for reporting recruitment and the determinants of recruitment rates were examined. 8394 titles and abstracts were screened; 22 articles were assessed for eligibility; 9 papers were included. Three of the 6 quantitative papers adopted a combination of passive and active recruitment strategies and 3 relied solely on active strategies. All 6 quantitative papers reported on recruitment rates; 2 evaluated the efficacy of recruitment strategies based on the achieved levels of participation. The evaluation evidence on how individuals are successfully recruited into organized PA programs, and how recruitment strategies influence or address inequities in PA participation, is limited. Culturally sensitive, gender sensitive and socially inclusive recruitment strategies based on building personal relationships show promise for engaging hard-to-reach populations. Improving the reporting and measurement of recruitment strategies into PA programs is essential to better understand which strategies are attracting various population groups thus allowing program implementers to employ recruitment strategies best suited to the needs of their community while making efficient use of program funding.

“I Don’t Believe in Age; I Believe in Staying Enthusiastic”: An Exploratory Qualitative Study into Recruitment Strategies Stimulating Middle-Aged and Older Adults to Join Physical Activity Interventions

“…Word of mouth was seen as a good channel, which is consistent with previous research [ 49 ]; this may indicate that encouraging people to tell their peers about interventions or giving them incentives for recruiting new participants for an intervention might be something to consider. If this is carried out, it should be noted that peer recruitment can be useful as long as peer recruiters are culturally sensitive and use a personal approach [ 26 ].…”

“…As a scoping review [ 26 ] has recently shown, the matter of engaging target populations in PA interventions needs further research. The goal of this qualitative study is to use McGuires’ Persuasion Communication Framework to enhance our understanding of the perceptions of MAOAs regarding recruitment strategies.…”