Our Mission
To establish pathways for recruitment and retention of racial/ethnic groups underrepresented in clinical research (i.e., non-Hispanic Blacks in the Washington, DC metropolitan area).
The ability of the Howard University Partnership with the National Institute of Health Equitable Clinical Trial Participation for Racial/Ethnic Communities Underrepresented in Research (HoPeNET) Community Advisory Board to inform and advise clinical trials will occur as a result of a novel use of systems-based evaluation and analysis of barriers and facilitators for participation in clinical trials.
The end result of the systems-based assets mapping will be an innovative information tool developed using artificial intelligence (AI)-based machine learning (ML) to characterize potential barriers that must be considered for optimizing clinical trial recruitment and participation in a target community. This ML-based tool has the potential to be disseminated widely to researchers around the country to reduce barriers for clinical trial participation for diverse, underrepresented communities.
Our Vision
To address barriers like mistrust and access to healthcare, through community-based participatory research (CBPR) which has emerged to engage communities at all stages of a research study life cycle from study design through dissemination of results. A component of CBPR research studies is the formation of a community advisory board (CAB). This board serves to advise and direct research questions, recruitment plans and evaluate disseminated results of the study. Based on the role of CABs, their presence can be considered central in securing participation from underrepresented communities.
Our Goals
Our overarching goal of the HoPeNET CAB is to inform and advise clinical trials developed at Howard University and the National Institutes of Health Intramural Research Program (NIH IRP).
This overarching goal will be achieved by addressing three specific aims:
- Identify perceived barriers/facilitators to clinical trial engagement among HoPeNET CAB members, Howard University researchers, and NIH IRP clinical investigators using qualitative and quantitative approaches.
- Use group-based model building as a systems science approach to identify key longitudinal activities involving both HoPeNET CAB members and clinical investigators to improve community trust and engagement.
- Develop an ML-based tool for predicting community engagement in clinical trials using data from the group-based model building. The goal for the tool is to serve as a predictor of willingness for racial/ethnic minority individuals to participate in clinical trials based on barriers and facilitators incorporated in the group-based model.