AHA Funds Research Network to Advance Clinical Trial Diversity

Clinical trial diversity is a necessity for ensuring equitable access to healthcare. Clinical trial data is extrapolated and used to make regulatory decisions, including drug approval, dosages, indications, and diagnostic or treatment regimens. Despite the need for diversity in clinical trials, recent research has pointed to a lack of diverse recruitment. To address these concerns, the American Heart Association has allocated $4 million to fund its Strategically Focused Research Network (SFRN) to advance clinical trial diversity.

This grant brings the total funding for SFRN to $24 million. The most recent funding is meant to help build an additional in-network scientific research center, marking the sixth research center in this network. The center will be in Baltimore, MD, run by Johns Hopkins University and Morgan State University researchers. The new center will be called Improving Participation among Diverse Populations in Cardiovascular Clinical Trials (IMPACT).

Led by Erin Michos, MD, MHS, FAHA, an American Heart Association volunteer and the director of women's cardiovascular health and an associate professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins, in collaboration with Payam Sheikhattari, MD, MPH, the director of the Morgan CARES (Community-Aligned Research Solutions) Outreach Center, the center will begin by conducting two projects.

Both projects hope to advance the recruitment of diverse and underrepresented populations in clinical trials. The first project, CONNECT, will be focused on developing a community of individuals interested in participating in heart disease research. Researchers working on this project plan to recruit assistance from local community members and other industry leaders to implement engagement strategies.

The second project will focus on digital techniques to recruit individuals interested in heart disease research. This project will evaluate methods such as websites, advertisements, and social media recruitment strategies.

“There are many barriers that reduce or inhibit the inclusion of diverse populations in clinical research. Those may include a lack of access to medical care for screenings or referrals to clinical trials; distrust of the research community; cultural and language differences; literacy and technology challenges; and the persistence of structural racism in our processes and systems,” said American Heart Association volunteer President Michelle A. Albert, MD, MPH, FAHA, the Walter A. Haas-Lucie Stern endowed chair in Cardiology, professor of medicine and admissions dean at University of California-San Francisco School of Medicine, in the AHA press release.