The National Black Church Initiative (NBCI) is launching the most innovative, comprehensive, and science-based clinical strategic plan to promote clinical trials among African-Americans in the 400 years’ history of the African community in America.

The NBCI National Clinical Strategy Plan is an innovative, broad-based program with a central goal of increasing the number of African-Americans participating in clinical trials across all disease states.

We plan to conduct trainer-of-trainer seminars and create 50,000 volunteer trainers. This is how we plan to educate 1 million African-Americans on the basic principles of clinical trials every year.

The purpose of the strategic plan is to deal finally with the issues surrounding African-Americans and clinical trials through increasing their understanding, education, and participation.

Strategic Objectives

1. Develop broad-based educational program to be launched in our 150,000 churches and online platforms, including social media.
2. Harness the deep wealth of African-Americans and Latinos ’ medical knowledge through experts in the field and partners from the National Medical Association and the National Hispanic Medical Association.
3. Collect critical data on every aspect of African-Americans’ medical history and knowledge, utilizing its 27.7 million church members in the Black community, in addition to the Latino communities.

Office of Surgeon General Purpose

1. Assume the position of Chief Medical Officer for both the Black church and the entire Black community. This will be granted to that person by 37 major Protestant denominations.
2. Responsible for speaking on the health priorities, strategies, methodologies, and health models to be employed in the Black community based on states with a high number of diseases.
3. Most importantly, they will be our spokesperson dealing directly with the White House, other federal institutions, major pharmaceutical companies and associations, congressional staff, and help formulate a just and non-biased health policy for the African-American community.

The Surgeon General and the NBCI National Clinical Strategy Task Force (NCS)

The NBCI Surgeon General will work in concert with the NBCI National Clinical Strategy Task Force consisting of 7 African-American Latino physicians and clinicians who will serve as the surgeon general’s scientific team and cabinet.

They will help the Surgeon General shape the messaging, programs, initiatives, and health policies for the entire black community focused on the faith community.

These individuals will come from the National Medical Association and the National Hispanic Medical Association.

NBCI Deputy Surgeon General and Other Members

NBCI will appoint a Latino Deputy Surgeon General to represent the interests of our Latino brothers and sisters.

The appointment of NBCI’s Surgeon General and Deputy Surgeon General will cover all aspects of race, gender, and culture.

The President of the National Medical Association and the President of the National Hispanic Medical Association will serve as ex-officio, non-voting members on the surgeon general’s scientific cabinet.

In addition, presidents of Charles R. Drew University, Morehouse School of Medicine, Meharry Medical College, and Howard University Hospital will also serve as ex-officio members on the NCS task force, provide expert advice to both the Surgeon General and the Deputy Surgeon General, and speak on behalf of Black and Latino communities.

Educating African-Americans on Clinical Trials – Techniques and Strategies

• Acknowledge fear and pain caused by the past abuse;
• Provide accurate and persuasive scientific information on the risks and benefits of clinical trials.
• Help African-Americans understand that participating in clinical trials improves the health of the entire community;
• Support pharmaceutical companies toward creating a different approach to reach African-Americans through the following areas:
  • Conducting culturally-sensitive literature review on the risks and benefits of participating in clinical trials;
  • Restructuring recruitment and retention of investigators within underrepresented clinical research fields;
  • Developing an innovative approach for changing site selection for clinical trials and by utilizing NBCI churches that are next to large clinics.
  • Conducting 1.5 hour-long educational sessions on clinical trials in targeted cities;
  • Launching NBCI Mobile Clinical Trial Pavilion in targeted cities as well as a Clinical Trial Field Trip, Online Portal, and Online Interactive Booklet
  • Continued implementation of clinical trial lecture tours; and
  • Producing Clinical Trial Videos for online and social media dissemination.

NBCI Clinical Trial Educational Sessions

NBCI will host educational sessions throughout the nation in 14 cities with a large percentage of Black and Latino populations and provide a comprehensive clinical trial education that is tailored to those communities.

Comprehensive Literature Development

• Develop literature through CLINICALNEWS - a single sheet with a news briefing that provides the basics of clinical trials, its benefits, and risks simple language.
• CLINICALNEWS will be handed out to 150,000 churches, focusing on low-income Black and Latino communities throughout the country.
• The news brief will be distributed throughout our churches and human and civil rights organizations, shared and published through social media, and serve as a newspaper supplement to the 274 black newspapers in the country and regional dailies targeting the African-American and Latino communities.

NBCI Mobile Clinical Trial Pavilion

NBCI developed a mobile pavilion with clinical trial facts and principles for every community to visit with their family.

The pavilion will visit every targeted city and display information on clinical trials and the importance of the African-American and Latino communities to participate in them.

NBCI Clinical Trial Field Trip

We are engaged in an all-out, 14-city initiative to motivate African-Americans and Latinos to participate in clinical trials by allowing participants to speak to clinical researchers on a field trip.

The clinical trial field trips will forge the relationship between medical facilities and the Black church as we build a data pool of individuals interested in clinical trials

The field trip will create real-time experiences for the participant so that they would understand the different aspects of being in clinical trials

NBCI Clinical Trial Online Portal

NBCI developed an online web portal housing information on clinical trials that is culturally competent and designed for African-Americans.

NBCI Clinical Trial Online Interactive Booklet

The goal of the NBCI Interactive Clinical Trials Booklet is to improve the health outcomes of the African-American communities by making African-Americans aware of the critical features, benefits, and challenges of clinical trials.

NBCI Program Developers and Data Collection

NBCI will hire 20 program developers to coordinate the education and data collection. They will cover NBCI’s five faith commands around the country. The five command centers are located in major urban areas throughout the country (i.e. Atlanta, Georgia; New York, New York; Chicago, Illinois, Oakland, California; Dallas Texas).

NBCI Clinical Trial Lecture Tours

NBCI hosted experts in clinical research to discuss the importance of diversity and representing African-American and Latino communities in clinical trials.

NBCI Clinical Trial Video Production

NBCI has developed scripts to produce videos for targeted online audiences on "Introduction to Clinical Trials,” " Safeguards for Clinical Trial Participants," and "Benefits of Participating in Clinical Trials."

Upcoming NBCI Clinical Trials Activities

• Creation of NBCI African-American and Latino-based Clinical Trial Initiative promoting clinical trial education in both communities.
• Institute an annual discussion on the importance of African-American and Latino researchers working together to close gaps in clinical trial recruitment.
• Plan fall and spring clinical trials fairs - one in Houston, Texas, and one in the Bronx, New York.
• Solidify partnership with Dr. Sandoval and the Emerson Clinical Research Institute to promote clinical trials to African-American and Latino communities.
• Develop literature and content surrounding the psychological issues of African-Americans and Latinos about clinical trials.
• Institute the ‘I Am the Solution’ campaign to empower African-Americans and Latinos in a more significant role involving their health outcomes by getting educated on the power of clinical trials and their biomedical data.
• Establish Principal Investigator and Co-Principal Investigator program for developing recruitment and retainment strategies to increase minority researchers in the field of clinical research.