COUNT evaluate to zero if no matching records - ms-access

Question

Take the following:
SELECT
Count(a.record_id) AS newrecruits
,a.studyrecord_id
FROM
visits AS a
INNER JOIN
(
SELECT
record_id
, MAX(modtime) AS latest
FROM
visits
GROUP BY
record_id
) AS b
ON (a.record_id = b.record_id) AND (a.modtime = b.latest)
WHERE (((a.visit_type_id)=1))
GROUP BY a.studyrecord_id;
I want to amend the COUNT part to display a zero if there are no records since I assume COUNT will evaluate to Null.
I have tried the following but still get no results:
IIF(ISNULL(COUNT(a.record_id)),0,COUNT(a.record_id)) AS newrecruits
Is this an issue because the join is on record_id? I tried changing the INNER to LEFT but also received no results.
Q
How do I get the above to evaluate to zero if there are no records matching the criteria?
Edit:
To give a little detail to the reasoning.
The studies table contains a field called 'original_recruits' based on activity before use of the database.
The visits tables tracks new_recruits (Count of records for each study).
I combine these in another query (original_recruits + new_recruits)- If there have been no new recruits I still need to display the original_recruits so if there are no records I need it to evalulate to zero instead of null so the final sum still works.

Answer 1

It seems like you want to count records by StudyRecords.
If you need a count of zero when you have no records, you need to join to a table named StudyRecords.
Did you have one? Else this is a nonsense to ask for rows when you don't have rows!
Let's suppose the StudyRecords exists, then the query should look like something like this :
SELECT
Count(a.record_id) AS newrecruits -- a.record_id will be null if there is zero count for a studyrecord, else will contain the id
sr.Id
FROM
visits AS a
INNER JOIN
(
SELECT
record_id
, MAX(modtime) AS latest
FROM
visits
GROUP BY
record_id
) AS b
ON (a.record_id = b.record_id) AND (a.modtime = b.latest)
LEFT OUTER JOIN studyrecord sr
ON sr.Id = a.studyrecord_id
WHERE a.visit_type_id = 1
GROUP BY sr.Id

Answer 2

I solved the problem by amending the final query where I display the result of combining the original and new recruits to include the IIF there.
SELECT
a.*
, IIF(IsNull([totalrecruits]),consents,totalrecruits)/a.target AS prog
, IIf(IsNull([totalrecruits]),consents,totalrecruits) AS trecruits
FROM
q_latest_studies AS a
LEFT JOIN q_totalrecruitment AS b
ON a.studyrecord_id=b.studyrecord_id
;