Engaging Minority Populations in Health Disparity Research Posted on July 24, 2007 Getting African-Americans involved in research takes open dialogue, asserts Christopher L. Edwards (bio).

If there was something I would say in terms of engaging and/or inspiring a young researcher who is interested in pursuing research on health disparities and/or with minority populations, I would simply say a lot of the hype is not true. African Americans and Hispanic populations do respond to research. They do respond in the same way that Caucasians and other populations respond to research. It often, though, requires that you are sensitive to issues of historical context and you understand those historical ills that have been committed on and against these populations, and that you address that in a very straightforward way. I think it’s important that you are open to dialogue, that you are knowledgeable, that you are willing to talk about that which is your research, but also the research of others.

For example, it is often the case that patients will ask us about Tuskegee. And what I find fascinating about Tuskegee is many of our patients’ and participants’ knowledge of Tuskegee is more myth than reality. For example, many of our subjects, particularly our aging subjects, believe that in the Tuskegee study, black men were injected with syphilis, rather than they came for treatment after having already contracted syphilis, and that treatment was withheld. And so it’s important that you take the job of educating our subject population. It’s important that you take the job of redirecting our subject population in a very serious manner, and that you do that as a very straight part and acceptable part of the job task and the job description.

I would say secondly it’s important that you’re willing to make those investments. If, in fact, all you want to do is get your study, get your vita filled, and move on, then probably you should not work with African American, Hispanic, and/or other minority populations. They are sensitive. There are many people who are, in fact, working very diligently to repair ills from the past. And research that contaminates that subject pool is not research that is welcome.

So I would say if you have a real interest in investing time and energy and even a career into reducing health disparities, research with minority populations can be quite fulfilling, quite rewarding, and certainly even profitable.

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