Research is needed to understand refugees’ health challenges and barriers to accessing health services during settlement. However, there are practical and ethical challenges for engaging refugees as participants. Despite this, there have been no studies to date specifically investigating refugee perspectives on factors affecting engagement in health research. Language-concordant focus groups in British Columbia, Canada, with four government-assisted refugee language groups (Farsi/Dari, Somali, Karen, Arabic) inquired about willingness to participate in health research. Twenty-three variables associated with the willingness of refugees to participate in health research were elicited. Variables related to research design included recruitment strategies, characteristics of the research team members and the nature of the research. Variables related to individual participants included demographic features such as gender and education, attitudes towards research and previous experience with research. This research can be used to increase opportunities for refugees’ engagement in research and includes recommendations for subgroups of refugees that may have more difficulties engaging in research. © 2017 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

qualitative research Research Ethics recruitment Patient Refugee

information processing education communication barrier Communication Barriers refugee demography minority group human Refugees ethics middle aged medical research Aged language Cultural Competency cultural competence qualitative research Young Adult Design Humans psychology male Canada female qualitative analysis health services social participation gender human experiment adult government research patient selection Health Services Accessibility British Columbia Focus Groups health care delivery