Survey to Evaluate the Diversity in Your Clinical Trial Programs

The American Clinical Health Disparities Commission through NBCI Clinical Trial Strategic Plan is presently surveying 150 African-American research physicians concerning the 15 criteria for the ranking of pharmaceutical clinical diversity programs.

We are systematically choosing physicians from every background so that we can have a plurality of thoughts and suggestions for building these 15 criteria platforms. This is being done with the thought in mind of how to encourage African-Americans to participate in clinical trials.

We have identified over 300 physicians but only plan to use 150 of them as we build the 15 criteria platform. Some of these physicians/researchers will be asked to be a part of the 20-member governing panel. The physicians/researchers are being selected by areas of expertise, age, geography, scholarly ranking, training/residency and who they studied under. The gathering of this critical data will give us a comprehensive perspective of where pharmaceutical companies are and where they need to be. These conversations will not be for public consumption but for a private evaluation. We will, however, publish the methodology on how we arrived at the 15 criteria without divulging or identifying any private conversations we have had with each participant.

Once the criteria have been agreed upon, they will go through further scrutiny by members of our pharma friends. It is important that the pharma industry sees this approach as helping to make sure they get it right the first time with the African-American community. One can even say that it is imperative that the industry take this process extremely seriously given its past and current issues with the African-American community.

The industry should look upon this process not only as friends but as a golden opportunity to begin to turn the tide away from its past toward a congenial and productive mutual relationship with the African-American community.