Engaging Rural Practitioners and Community Collaborators in Substance Use Disorder Needs Assessments: Recruitment Approaches Across 4 States

OBJECTIVE: The Northeastern United States experienced the highest rates of synthetic opioid overdose deaths in 2019, and in 2020, 3 of the 8 states with higher rural than urban drug overdose death rates were in the Northeast. To inform delivery of evidence-based substance use treatment in rural areas, we examined approaches to recruiting health care practitioners and community collaborators who work with people with opioid use disorder (OUD) in 4 northeastern states to complete needs assessment surveys. This article also outlines our methodological approaches to engaging rural health care practitioners and community collaborators. DESIGN: We developed tailored approaches to identify eligible practitioners and community collaborators using existing lists, state partner outreach, participant referrals, and social media advertisements. Eligible participants received email invitations to complete a survey. We calculated cooperation and response rates and described differences in online survey response and practitioner characteristics by state. SETTING: Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, and Northern New York. PARTICIPANTS: Health care practitioners and community collaborators who worked with people with OUD. RESULTS: From 2020 to 2023, 951 practitioners in 4 states and 388 community collaborators in 3 states completed needs assessments, with approximately 70% of respondents working in rural areas. States where we had access to long practitioner contact lists produced 50%-120% larger practitioner samples than those without existing lists. Response rates for all respondents ranged from 13% in Maine to 70% in New Hampshire, where participants completed eligibility screening before the survey. CONCLUSIONS: Our tailored approach to recruitment for each state allows for data collection across a range of practitioners and community collaborators engaged in OUD treatment, particularly rural practitioners often underrepresented in previous studies. These methods may serve as models for future efforts to engage rural substance use treatment practitioners and guide data collection through academic-community health partnerships in rural areas.