Here's a study that casts some light (via a randomized experiment) on the importance of incentives to get representative participation in clinical trials.
Nonrepresentativeness in Population Health Research: Evidence from a COVID-19 Antibody Study By Deniz Dutz, Michael Greenstone, Ali Hortaçsu, Santiago Lacouture, Magne Mogstad, Azeem M. Shaikh, Alexander Torgovitsky, and Winnie van Dijk, AER: Insights 2024, 6(3): 313–323, https://doi.org/10.1257/aeri.20230195
Abstract: "We analyze representativeness in a COVID-19 serological study with randomized participation incentives. We find large participation gaps by race and income when incentives are lower. High incentives increase participation rates for all groups but increase them more among underrepresented groups. High incentives restore representativeness on race and income and also on health variables likely to be correlated with seropositivity, such as the uninsured rate, hospitalization rates, and an aggregate COVID-19 risk index."
"We analyze representativeness in a unique COVID-19 serological study. Unlike most studies, the Representative Community Survey Project (RECOVER)COVID-19 serological study experimentally varied financial incentives for participation. The study was conducted on households in Chicago (the target population). Randomly sampled households were sent a package that contained a self-administered blood sample collection kit and were asked to return the sample by mail to be tested for the presence of COVID-19 antibodies (“seropositivity”). Households in the sample were randomly assigned one of three levels of financial compensation for participating in the study: $0, $100, or $500.
"We find that households in neighborhoods with high shares of minority and poor households are grossly underrepresented at lower incentive levels. High incentives increase participation rates for all groups but increase them more among underrepresented groups. A $500 incentive restores representativeness in terms of neighborhood-level race and poverty status. Representativeness is also restored in health variables likely to be correlated with seropositivity, such as the uninsured rate, hospitalization rates, and an aggregate COVID-19 risk index. Since incentives were randomly assigned and only revealed after the household was contacted, the noncontact rates at $0 and $100 should be the same as at $500, implying that differential hesitancy to participate is responsible for much of the nonrepresentativeness that we find at lower incentives.
"We are not aware of studies that randomize financial incentives in population health studies. It is well appreciated that racial minorities and lower-income households participate in health research at lower rates.1 The impact of incentives on survey participation rates conditional on demographic characteristics has been studied in the survey methodology literature (see Groves et al. 2009; Singer and Ye 2013, and references therein). The incentives used in this literature are typically an order of magnitude smaller than the incentives in the RECOVER study."
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