Participation is Personal: Community Outreach Impacts Clinical Trial Diversity

Participation is Personal: Community Outreach Impacts Clinical Trial Diversity By Kathleen Hoffman, PhD, MSPH Despite FDA policy initiatives over the last few decades, certain groups continue to be unnecessarily underrepresented in many clinical trials.1 The Yale Center for Clinical Investigation (YCCI) at the Yale School of Medicine is tackling this problem with local resources. Since its inception in 2005, part of YCCI’s mission has been to: “...Strengthen the infrastructure that connects clinical research teams with practitioners, community health clinics, and community stakeholders throughout Connecticut, reaching out in particular to diverse populations including children, women, the elderly, [...]

Diversity in Clinical Trials: Being Left Out

Diversity in Clinical Trials: Being Left Out By Marina Shayevich Why do African Americans develop breast cancers with significantly higher basal gene expression? 1 Why do Hispanics develop type II diabetes at an earlier age than other groups? 2 Understanding the functional reasons for disease processes is necessary to develop targeted treatments. Yet because clinical research lacks sufficient diversity, reasons for and mechanisms of disease development are not fully understood. Some reasons for minority patient under-representation in clinical trials are known. For example, strict eligibility criteria, like chronic kidney disease,3 hypertension or diabetes exclusions, leave out many groups, [...]