Stanford researchers testing ways to improve clinical trial diversity

Stanford Medicine, June 22, 2022.

Two Stanford Medicine professors are working with the Morehouse School of Medicine to test ways to enroll more diverse patients in clinical trials for heart disease treatments. The research is part of a $20 million project launched by the American Heart Association to improve diversity in clinical trials.

“Many common chronic diseases disproportionately affect communities of color,” said Hannah Valantine, MD, a professor of cardiovascular medicine at Stanford Medicine. For example, Black Americans are 30% more likely to die of heart disease than white Americans, according to 2018 data from the U.S. Health and Human Services. “To translate research discoveries into medicines that can make an impact on those communities, we must have diversity in the clinical trials testing them,” she noted. Read More >