About Us
Clinical Trial
Barriers
Solving the problem of African American recruitment and retention in the clinical trials process will take more than “throwing money” at the problem. All of the barriers to clinical trials participation must be addressed in the “fix”:
Trust Barriers
Economic Barriers
Cultural Barriers
Physical Barriers
Linguistic Barriers
Educational Barriers
All of these barriers disproportionately impact communities of color. The founders of Clinical Diversity Solutions are uniquely positioned to address these barriers in a culturally competent way. Their passion and desire to address the industry wide problem of minority under representation in clinical trials began in 1995 at Columbia University and their unique, culturally centered, faith-based solutions were never fully embraced.
The focus on recruiting African American physician practices into the clinical trials process utilizing an electronic data capture platform accessed by each practice on the internet was considered “science fiction” at the time. It has always been the founder’s belief that the problem of trust and the willingness of black patients to participate in “medical experimentation” can only be overcome if African American stakeholders (physicians, geneticists, HBCU’s, faith-based organizations, fraternal organizations, etc.) are leading the charge.
The past continues to haunt the pharmaceutical and biotech industry as the struggles of ethnic and racial diversity in clinical trials remains, at times, an overwhelming problem. Continuing to engage “professional clinical investigators” who can recruit large numbers of homogeneous patients as they have in the past will continue to provide the same outcomes and persistent under representation of high-risk patient subgroups. The absence of diversity in clinical trials can have serious consequences for the underrepresented populations that are being prescribed the new therapeutic. Several studies have demonstrated pharmacogenetic differences in drug metabolism, clinical effectiveness and side effect profiles for many clinically important drugs.
History has also taught us that there are significant disparities in healthcare access and healthcare quality in minority communities in the US and around the world. This is especially true for Americans of African, Asian and Hispanic descent. The US and Europe provide the volunteers for almost 65% of the world’s clinical trials. This translates into the majority of clinical trial participants being white. Recent data (2015-16) assessed clinical trial participation by race and gender and revealed that 80% of clinical trial participants world-wide are white. Only 20% were Black, Asian or other. Only 19% of clinical trial participants in the US are African American, Asian or Hispanic.
Covid-19 has highlighted the myriad of inequities in the healthcare system in the US including the disproportionate impact of poorly treated underlying health conditions, inequities in access to care, and higher mortality in high-risk populations. African Americans have the highest mortality rates from Covid 19 infections (2x> white patients). Covid-19 vaccine trials failed to adequately enroll representative cohorts of diverse populations in their studies. This was true for AstraZeneca, Moderna, Pfizer and BioNTech at various phases of their clinical trials. A solution has been found by Clinical Diversity Solutions!
Scientific Enlightenment or Discovery Through Diversity
The multicolored people around the light bulb of "enlightenment" with the DNA filament of the light bulb. Our company is "Ai (artificial intelligence) enabled African American patient recruitment solutions for clinical trials. We are the bridge of trust between patients of color and ethical medical research."
