The Lay Advocates' Communication Assessment Tool (LACAT).

A tool to assess communication strategies used by lay advocates was developed and tested with 96 Latina and Caucasian study participants who were invited to promote a prevention trial to other women. Subscales showed strong initial reliability estimates and included: (a) telling personal stories, (b) describing the benefits of participation, (c) expressing caring, (d) emphasizing future generations' health, (e) repeating the message, and (e) communicating the importance of the study to one's own ethnic group. The subscales that comprise the Lay Advocacy Communication Assessment Tool may serve as a basis for developing a validated instrument and may subsequently be used to identify effective recruitment strategies.