Lessons learned from a pilot study on the health status of children from itinerant populations.

The pilot study is used to guide development of a research design or to test an already developed plan; however, results of pilot work often are not reported. Pilot work can yield many valuable lessons and provide investigative training to the principal investigator and as well as evidence to funding agencies that the research is feasible and worthwhile. The pilot study described here is preliminary work on health disparities in two itinerant populations: carnival and migrant farmworker children. This pilot study had three aims: (a) identify the most productive methods to recruit subjects from these two "invisible" populations; (b) test feasibility of the research protocol; and (c) collect preliminary data on the children's health status for future research proposals.