Evaluating Impact of Mobile Community Education Engagement Initiative on Perceptions and Behaviors Related to Clinical Research Among Underserved Populations

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Underserved communities are underrepresented in clinical research. The resulting lack of clinical data on these populations perpetuates health inequities. Engaging diverse communities in clinical research is a priority for academia and industry alike, and both have devoted significant resources to developing educational materials and recruiting diverse populations for clinical research. However, those efforts have not resulted in clinical research participation that reflects the diversity of patient communities. Sometimes, community members feel tokenized instead of valued as partners in the research process. Other times, the outreach efforts never reach the intended audiences or do not arrive through trusted channels. Our proposed project will address these challenges by leveraging grassroots community engagement to bring clinical research education into the heart of two diverse cities. The proposed pilot program devotes several months to cultivating community engagement and establishing community ownership of the program in each city. It does so through collaboration with community leaders, community educators, local media, and patient and public advocacy groups. Working together, CISCRP and engaged community partners will bring a mobile educational exhibit about clinical research to each city for two weeks. The exhibit will be staffed by local community educators and located at strategically selected cultural, sporting and health-related events within diverse, underserved areas. CISCRP will solicit feedback from community partners to identify improvements and develop best practices for grassroots community engagement. We will conduct surveys among exhibit guests at three key time points to understand how mobile, community-based education affects their attitudes and experiences with clinical research. This pilot program is an innovative initiative to support a range of community partners in bringing clinical research education to their communities. This research will provide critical insights into the impact of this grassroots program model on underserved communities’ perceptions of, and engagement with, clinical research.