Join Us supports recruitment for all human research study types from online surveys to clinical trials.

The Join Us research register can support recruitment for human research studies with ethics approval by an Australian Human Research Ethics Committee.

There are currently no costs associated with the use of the ‘Join Us’ register.

In order to register your study with Join Us, all you need to provide is:

• A confirmation of ethics approval for your study.
• The Study Protocol, which outlines the use of Join Us or third-party online recruitment platforms.
• If not already mentioned as a recruitment method in your Study Protocol, you might be required to make a general ethics amendment to include ‘Join Us’ as a potential recruitment method. You can choose to submit the ethics amendment after we have determined the request feasibility to identify a list of participants.
• A summary of your study in lay language, outlining the purpose of the study, eligibility criteria, what is involved, benefits (gift vouchers, etc.), study team contact information and name of study sponsors.
• A study logo and any images that have been used to promote the study (if applicable)

Based on the eligibility criteria you provide us with, we run a preliminary assessment on our database to create a list of potential participants who might be relevant to your study. We then send out an email to each of the identified participants informing them about the study. Participants can then choose to express their interest directly to the researchers.

Please note, we can currently only match participants based on select demographics and health conditions. Where necessary we recommend you perform further eligibility screening on participants who express interest in participating in your study.  

Based on the selection criteria which you have mentioned in the Register Access form, we will screen participants on the health conditions on the list and any other health conditions which the participants might have added in the ‘free text response field’ on the registration form.

We can also screen participants by age, gender, country of birth, residential postcode, COVID-19 vaccination status and language spoken.

As recruitment is ongoing, the size of the register continues to grow. Currently there are over 2,700 participants registered.

‘Join Us’ has already supported more than 39 research projects all over Australia.

To minimise the burden on participants, we do not currently send reminders to participants about study invitations. However, studies are also published on the Join Us website, through social media and a select number of studies currently recruiting are advertised through our quarterly Join Us participant newsletter.

People aged 18 years and above living in Australia can sign up. The register has a diverse cohort. Around two-thirds of participants are female and 61% are aged over 50 years old. Participants include those from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds (12%), Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples (~3%), people with no self-reported major health conditions (12%). Overall, 88.3% of participants have reported a health condition or disease.

Yes. The health information questionnaire requires participants to respond whether they have had COVID-19 infection in the past and whether they had their COVID-19 vaccinations. Unfortunately, Join Us does not currently hold information on the number of doses for COVID-19 vaccinations.