Clinical Trial Diversity

Clinical Diversity

Improving Clinical Trial Diversity Is Critical to Health Equity

Clinical trial diversity helps to ensure we have medications that are suited to reflect and treat the intended treatment population. That’s why our entire industry came together to develop and voluntarily adopt principles on closing the diversity gaps.

Understanding the challenges of the past are helping us improve the future. See how we’re taking action.

LEARN HOW WE GOT HERE

Collaborative Actions to Reach Equity (CARE) Grants

In November 2020, PhRMA member companies launched the first-ever industry-wide principles on clinical trial diversity. These principles build on our commitment to earn trust and address the systemic issues that deter Black and Brown communities from participating in clinical trials, so that people who want to participate, can.

Read the Principles

Moving Forward on Clinical Trial Diversity: Insights from Our Stakeholder Workshop

In June 2021, 500+ health care and community members from over 150 organizations came together at PhRMA’s first stakeholder workshop focused on improving diversity in clinical trials. Take a look at the highlights from the in-depth conversations.

Photo of a doctor and a patient reading a chart, over a blue splash graphic background, with text below reading Enhancing Clinical Trial Diversity - Stakeholder Perspectives on Advancing Research through Representative Clinical Trials

Enhancing clinical trial diversity: Stakeholder perspectives on advancing research through representative clinical trials, covers key barriers and potential solutions to improving clinical trial diversity. This research is an important step in the industry’s broader effort to address disparities within the U.S. health care system.

Download the Report

Photo of a doctor and a patient reading a chart, over a blue splash graphic background, with text below reading Enhancing Clinical Trial Diversity - Stakeholder Perspectives on Advancing Research through Representative Clinical Trials

As we endeavor to push forward to change the future, we must first understand the past. Colonization, slavery, segregation, systemic racism—these experiences continue to disproportionately impact underserved communities and have created a foundation of mistrust rooted in history.

Some of this history can be found here:

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Here is a small sampling of formative events in U.S. history that have shaped the relationship communities of color have with medical research and the health care system. This list is by no means exhaustive, but we hope it helps pave the way for candid dialogue that guides our work on equity.

Slavery

Gynecological Experimentation on Enslaved Women

Closing of Medical Schools and Exclusion of Future Health Providers

Birth Control Experimentation in Puerto Rico

4. 1930s - 1970s

The Tuskegee Syphilis Study

Henrietta Lacks

Radioactive Iodine

1. 1619 - 1865 Slavery

Slavery (1619 - 1865)

An illustration depicting a pair of manacles, commonly used to restrain enslaved people during slavery in the United States

Illustration by Toya Beacham. Click here to learn more about the artist.

2. 1845 - 1849 Gynecological Experimentation on Enslaved Women

Gynecological Experimentation On Enslaved Women (1845 - 1849)

Illustration by Toya Beacham. Click here to learn more about the artist.

3. 1870 Closing of Medical Schools and Exclusion of Future Health Providers

Closing Of Medical Schools and Exclusion Of Future Health Providers (1870)

An illustration of a black man depicted from the shoulders down, wearing a three-piece suit, carrying a medical bag

Illustration by Toya Beacham. Click here to learn more about the artist.

4. 1930s - 1970s Birth Control Experimentation in Puerto Rico

Birth Control Experimentation in Puerto Rico (1930s - 1970s)

An illustration depicting a black Puerto Rican woman holding a young child on her lap, with another child nearby.

Illustration by Toya Beacham. Click here to learn more about the artist.

5. 1932 - 1972 The Tuskegee Syphilis Study

The Tuskegee Syphilis Study (1932 - 1972)

An illustration depicting a black man in common clothing of a farmer from 1930s America, centered in a group of other similarly dressed figures who are shown in outline only

Illustration by Toya Beacham. Click here to learn more about the artist.

6. 1951 Henrietta Lacks

Henrietta Lacks (1951)

An illustration depicting Henrietta Lacks, wearing a suit, smiling, and with her hands on her hips

Illustration by Toya Beacham. Click here to learn more about the artist.

7. 1956 - 1957 Radioactive Iodine

Radioactive iodine (1956 - 1957)

An illustration of a steel barrel with a radioactive waste label, behind a medicine tablet resting on a steel tray

Illustration by Toya Beacham. Click here to learn more about the artist.

Events like these lead to lasting mistrust and impact how communities of color approach health care. This mistrust, combined with social and economic barriers, is amplified when it comes to clinical trials. We are committed to working with communities to address this.

What We Do Matters; How We Do It Is Equally Important

A conversation on why a community-centric approach is needed to build trust, increase awareness, enhance clinical trial diversity and advance health equity.

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