Original reportRacial Differences in Factors that Influence the Willingness to Participate in Medical Research Studies
Section snippets
Selected Abbreviations and Acronyms
PMSA = Primary Metropolitan Statistical Area
SUDAAN = The Survey Data Analysis Program, Version 7.5
Methods
Eligible households were located in selected occupied housing units in the Detroit PMSA. Eligible respondents were 18 years of age or older and were current residents of a selected household. The head of the household or their spouse, at their discretion, completed the questionnaire/interview. Housing units were excluded if there were no eligible respondents (i.e., no respondent at least 18 years old, vacant housing units, respondent was too sick to participate or the respondent didn't speak
Results
Six hundred seventy-two households were eventually selected from the 1069 occupied census tracts in the Detroit PMSA (Figure 1). Response rates and eligibility are provided in Figure 2. A total of 42 households were coded as ineligible for the mail survey portion of the study. The proportion of households coded as ineligible for the mail survey within the City of Detroit and suburban areas was about 6% for each.
Among the 284 households initially identified for the telephone survey, nine percent
Discussion
Study results indicate that association between race and the willingness to participate in a medical research study is a result of racial differences in issues related to trust of medical research. African American respondents more frequently attributed race/ethnicity as a factor in the distribution of the burden of medical research risks than did whites. A large proportion of whites indicated that more of the risks of medical research are borne by the poor. This was considerably less than the
Conclusion
Human behavior and motivation are products of the complex interrelationship of social conditions, environmental exposures, and historical experiences. Race and ethnicity have been major influences on individual and group experiences of minorities in the U.S. 29, 55, 56, 57. This is the basis for the distrust that impedes African American participation in medical research studies. Trust building with African Americans, therefore, will be dependent upon reducing the occurrence of experiences and
Acknowledgements
This study was funded by grant number R03 HS09597–01 from the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research and grant number 1 F31 CA 72125–01A1 from the National Cancer Institute. This study would not have been possible without the cooperation and interest of the study participants. Thanks to Kathy Helzlsouer, M.D. for her assistance with the final draft of this manuscript and Anthony Alberg, Ph.D., for his assistance with the logistic regression analyses. The authors also gratefully acknowledge
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