#ClinicalTrialsSoWhite: How Drug Makers Are Using COVID-19 To Improve Trial Diversity

Pandemic Highlights Trials’ Minority Underrepresentation

 
• By Alaric DeArment

Efforts to improve trial diversity predate COVID-19, but the pandemic’s disproportionate effects on minority communities have brought the issue to the forefront.

Closed up finger on keyboard with word CLINICAL TRIALS
Clinical trial diversity is a longtime topic of discussion, but COVID-19 has highlighted its importance • Source: Shutterstock

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted a number of deficiencies within the US health care system, chief among them the vast gulf of inequality between different ethnic groups and geographic areas, a gulf that has resulted in the virus causing significant disease and death among Black, Latino and Native American communities. A consequence of that inequality is that the populations enrolled into clinical trials have historically often not properly reflected the ethnic makeup of the country.

The pandemic has drawn significant attention to the issue of clinical trial diversity, and as a result, several drug makers...

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