Decades of di­ver­si­ty ini­tia­tives lat­er, cer­tain groups re­main 'con­sis­tent­ly un­der­rep­re­sent­ed' in can­cer tri­als, GAO says

Af­ter more than three decades of in­sti­tut­ing gov­ern­ment poli­cies to im­prove clin­i­cal tri­al di­ver­si­ty, cer­tain racial and eth­nic groups, as well as ado­les­cents, old­er adults, women, low-in­come in­di­vid­u­als, and in­di­vid­u­als from rur­al com­mu­ni­ties “re­main con­sis­tent­ly un­der­rep­re­sent­ed in can­cer clin­i­cal tri­als,” the Gov­ern­ment Ac­count­abil­i­ty Of­fice said in a new re­port re­leased this week.

The GAO re­port ex­plains many of the fed­er­al ef­forts around in­creas­ing di­ver­si­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly in fed­er­al­ly-fund­ed can­cer tri­als, with DOD, HHS, and VA de­vel­op­ing re­search col­lab­o­ra­tions, mod­i­fy­ing re­search prac­tices, re­duc­ing bar­ri­ers to pa­tient par­tic­i­pa­tion with pay­ments and via oth­er means, and col­lect­ing and shar­ing more da­ta.

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