Received a letter from us?

### THIS PAGE ONLY APPLIES TO FAMILY COHORT'S PARTICIPANTS ###

First of all, congratulations, you’ve hit the jackpot! Not many people got these personally-addressed invitations! In fact it’s likely that no-one else you know got one! How special is that?!

By receiving the invitation, you are not committing to anything other than receiving a phone call from one of us to give you more information about the study. All you’ve got to lose is a 10-minute conversation. We will, however, do our best to convince you it would be an excellent idea to sign up! But even if we can’t get you on board, there is still value to our research project in knowing why you don’t want to participate.

The testing will take place at Patrick Manson Building, 7 Sassoon Road, Pokfulam, Hong Kong. We’re just near the Queen Mary Hospital. Just take any bus to the Queen Mary Hospital. You may need to cross the footbridge (you may not need if you come from Southern District) to reach Sassoon Road. After a 2 min walk down along the Sassoon Road, you will find our building (No. 7 Sassoon Road) on your left. Please enter the building, report to reception and one of us will come to meet you.

What’s in it for you?

We’ll also give you HK$400 cash at the end of the second visit, with another HK$400 after re-testing in 2 years’ time. There will be 2 extra lots of HK$150 if you sign up for 2 MRI scans, also 2 years apart. A potential total of $1,100! We’ll also give you a report on your physical activity, and sitting and sleep patterns from the monitoring week. And last but not least, you will have the satisfaction of knowing you’ve made a vital contribution to a major international research study on a very important and current topic that affects us all. (And you’ll help us beat Melbourne and Barcelona in our little recruitment competition.)

How we got your contact details

We obtained your contact details from the FAMILY cohort following the collaborative agreements of data access. Please visit the FAMILY Cohort for more information.

The iMAP Hong Kong study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of The University of Hong Kong/Hospital Authority Hong Kong West Cluster (HKU/HA HKW IRB). By using the FAIMILY cohort, we could identify specific people (50-79 years old), living in the targeted neighbourhoods and phone them. That’s the only information the FAMILY cohort has provided us, just enough to post our letters of invitation and reach you via phone.

Unsure?

Remember, by responding to the letter you are only committing to hearing more about the study via a phone call. We’ll also happily answer any questions you might have. And if you are interested but participation might be difficult – the time commitment, the timing of the commitment, getting to the testing centre, and so on – we have some options we can offer to help overcome those hurdles. We will certainly encourage you to sign up, but it won’t be a pressure-tactics hard-sell call. If you are a “no” we’ll thank you for your time and take you out of our database so you don’t get follow-up reminders.

Regardless of your decision, please let us know one way or the other.