Development and validation of a protocol to identify and recruit participants into a large scale study on liver fluke in cattle.

Using a protocol of contacting farmers directly by telephone and subsequently sending information by post, 79% of the target sample size was successfully recruited into the study. A dataset of farm-specific information on possible risk factors for liver fluke infection and corresponding liver-fluke infection status was generated for the development of statistical models to identify risk factors for liver fluke infection at the farm-level.