Jul 27, 2023
Jennifer Jones-McMeans, Divisional Vice President of Global Clinical Affairs at Abbott, discusses Abbot's new diversity initiative to help address mistrust and societal barriers that underrepresented populations face in receiving healthcare and participating in clinical trials. Through partnerships, clinical research coordinators from diverse backgrounds working in smaller institutions are trained to work with these populations. Norton Health with the Institute for Health Equity is putting funding and infrastructure in place to build a research program model for historically Black colleges and universities to attract more diverse participation in trials and build more vital research institutions.
Jennifer explains, "I had a good conversation with a physician today from the New York area, and we talked about one barrier that is translation. We discussed that the clinical trial this individual is working on did not have the resources for translation services. And so, if you think about something as simple as that, it means that patients who are non-English speaking, their family members, and researchers cannot even approach them because they may not have the translated material. That's one very simple barrier. We can go back to also time - patient time is critical. If you think about individuals who are working and who have family obligations, how do we actually reduce the barrier of time?"
"Well, this is where when we think about race and ethnicity, race is not biologic. Remember, it's a social construct. Ethnicity is a social construct. Yes, if you look geographically, we're 99.9% similar when it comes to human genomes. Who I am as an African-American female, I may have far more genetic similarities to someone who is not of African descent. We first have to dispel that. Yes, there can be genetic elements. We do know that geographically you may see a higher frequency of certain genetic associations and whatnot. But I think it becomes less about this because genetics and race are not biologic."
"When you think about who do I need to include? You have to bring in this whole concept of social determinants of health, or also concepts where people, cultures, groups, individuals are impressed not only by the biology but what their surroundings are."
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