# A Tailored Approach to Promoting Engagement in Public Health

> **NIH NIH R44** · TRANSCENDENT INTERNATIONAL, LLC · 2020 · $520,101

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
Successfully reaching and enrolling fully representative target populations in public health interventions is a
highly desired, but notoriously difficult, prospect, especially when an initiative is focused on socially charged
issues or health conditions that affect vulnerable subgroups. For example, HIV/AIDS has disproportionately
high morbidity among a number of minority/marginalized populations, and faces a stigma that further
complicates recruitment efforts. The commercial sector, on the other hand, faces similar challenges for
engaging diverse audiences, but has achieved highly notable successes in its marketing and advertising
efforts. Brands and companies have effectively utilized a number of innovative approaches to increase
operational efficiency, measure campaign effectiveness, and capture relevant data to pinpoint specific
consumer behavior. A comparable approach, tailored to meet the idiosyncratic needs of the public health
enterprise, would offer significant improvement to its ability to engage with intended audiences. Those proven
methods, however, entail significant capital and dedicated personnel that are not typically available to the
majority of public health organizations. Thus, there is a pronounced yet unmet need for more scalable toolsets
that can improve outreach and engagement of target populations.
In order to address these challenges, this project seeks to increase representative enrollment through
customized outreach analyses and informed tailoring of recruitment and engagement strategies. The proposed
web-based system will enable researchers to conduct typology stratification of participant groups based on
demographic, psychographic, and other pertinent characteristics, and will provide a platform for iterative
improvement toward encouraging desired enrollee behavior in real-time. This targeted approach holds the
promise to enhance participant engagement in public health interventions, and will be tested in the context of
facilitating enrollment in an eHealth study targeting HIV+ men who have sex with men (MSM).

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10004720
- **Project number:** 5R44NR016908-03
- **Recipient organization:** TRANSCENDENT INTERNATIONAL, LLC
- **Principal Investigator:** SABINA HIRSHFIELD
- **Activity code:** R44 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $520,101
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2018-08-01 → 2022-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10004720

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10004720, A Tailored Approach to Promoting Engagement in Public Health (5R44NR016908-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-26 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10004720. Licensed CC0.

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