SPECIAL SECTION Lessons Learned About Minority Recruitment and Retention From the Centers on Minority Aging and Health Promotion

Purpose: This article presents a summary of an earlier monograph on the recruitment and retention of older ethnic minority individuals. Design and Methods: The authors provide an overview of re-cruitment and retention efforts made by six National Institutes of Health Office of Minority Research/ National Institute on Aging-funded Centers on Minor-ity Aging and Health Promotion. We rely on a model that focuses on barriers and enablers to recruitment that stem from the minority community as well as the research community. Results: The summary of find-ings suggests that recruitment and retention success occurs when there is a match between the goals of the ethnic minority communities and the research com-munity. Implications: Recognizing and understand-ing the culture of each ethnic minority community as well the research perspectives is essential to success-ful recruitment and retention of ethnic minority elderly individuals