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Exploring Willingness to Participate in Clinical Trials by Ethnicity

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An Erratum to this article was published on 31 October 2016

This article has been updated

Abstract

African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans are disproportionately affected by cancer, yet underrepresented in cancer clinical trials. Because of this, it is important to understand how attitudes and beliefs about clinical trials vary by ethnicity. A national, random sample of 860 adults was given an online survey about attitudes toward clinical trials. We examined willingness to participate in clinical trials, attitudes toward clinical trials, trust in doctors, attitudes toward alternative and complementary medicine, and preferred information channels. Results indicate that African-American and Hispanic-American participants have more negative attitudes about clinical trials, more distrust toward doctors, more interest in complementary and alternative medicine, and less willingness to participate in clinical trials than white/non-Hispanics, although specific factors affecting willingness to participate vary. The channels people turn to for information on clinical trials also varied by ethnicity. These results help explain the ethnic disparities in cancer clinical trial enrollment by highlighting some potential underlying causes and drawing attention to areas of importance to these groups.

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  • 31 October 2016

    An erratum to this article has been published.

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Acknowledgment

The authors would like to acknowledge the Annenberg Schools for Communication at the University of Southern California and the University of Pennsylvania and the Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands for their contributions to the Annenberg National Health Communication Survey.

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Correspondence to Katrina L. Pariera.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study. All procedures performed in this study were approved by the institution review board.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Additional information

An erratum to this article is available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s40615-016-0307-z.

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Pariera, K.L., Murphy, S.T., Meng, J. et al. Exploring Willingness to Participate in Clinical Trials by Ethnicity. J. Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities 4, 763–769 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40615-016-0280-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40615-016-0280-6

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