De­spite fed­er­al ef­forts to di­ver­si­fy clin­i­cal tri­als, progress re­mains 'stag­nan­t' — re­port

While calls to di­ver­si­fy clin­i­cal tri­als have grown loud­er in re­cent years — gain­ing sup­port from fed­er­al agen­cies such as the FDA and NIH — progress has large­ly stalled, ac­cord­ing to a new re­port from the Na­tion­al Acad­e­mies of Sci­ences, En­gi­neer­ing and Med­i­cine.

Swaths of pa­tients in racial and eth­nic mi­nor­i­ty groups, as well as LGBTQIA+, preg­nant and old­er adult pop­u­la­tions con­tin­ue to be left out of clin­i­cal tri­als. While some ad­vances have been made in the last 30 years — women now ac­count for rough­ly half of clin­i­cal tri­al par­tic­i­pants — growth in oth­er ar­eas re­mains stag­nant, ac­cord­ing to the re­port, which was man­dat­ed by Con­gress and spon­sored by the NIH.

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