News & Activities
Methodology Monday July Roundup
The COVID-19 pandemic has increased awareness of the need to include patients traditionally underrepresented in research. In this #MethodologyMonday, we zoom in on Chokkara et al. who looked at the recruitment of underrepresented populations in COVID-19 studies conducted in the US and found they excluded people with high-risk chronic conditions, and most trials excluded children, pregnant women, and lactating women.
We’ve already shared this article but not as part of our #MethodologyMonday series. Direct from our consortium, Frances Shiely & Shaun Treweek contributed to the development of the STEP UP guidance to help researchers design inclusive clinical trials. This guidance includes input from the ACCESS team as well as the public contributors. The article in question outlines how they were developed. The resulting Strategies for Trialists to promote Equal Participation in clinical trials for Under-served Populations
The Digital Cancer Research and Vocal co-developed this week’s #MethodologyMonday guidance with patients. They held online workshops to review how inclusivity can be supported from the research question development to the trial management. Through the course of these efforts, they came up with 5 principles for the development of technology clinical trials. To support the work, they developed an interactive checklist intended for use by the research team throughout the trial development process.
This #MethodologyMonday is in line with the SENSITISE outcomes. Passmore and colleagues used a survey to understand the difference between knowledge and implementation of inclusivity in research. Their results showed that federal funding, years of experience, recruitment of healthy participants and dedicated training on recruitment impact individuals knowledge base and experience.
