What does it Take to Qualify & Activate Embedded Trial Sites in Rural Health Systems for a Cancer Study? This Study Shows the Way

Important components of medical and health implementation science, pragmatic clinical trials are clinical trials that focus on correlation between treatments and outcomes in real-world health system practice as opposed to focusing on proving causative explanations for outcomes, which requires extensive de-confounding with inclusion and exclusion criteria so strict that the study sponsor can risk rendering the trial results irrelevant to real world care. But what is required to recruit a representative sample of organizations into these pragmatic clinical trials?&nbsp; With a mandate for more diversity in research---and this includes rural representation to federally qualified health centers and other sources of patients&mdash;rural populations are traditionally underrepresented in cancer research. In fact, according to the authors of a recent study a mere 3% of National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded cancer research is conducted in the rural setting.&nbsp; However, about 14% to 19% of the American population resides in rural regions.&nbsp; Additionally, 25% of Medicaid beneficiaries 65 years and above are served by a rural clinical practice.&nbsp; How to bridge this stark chasm?&nbsp; Potentially the National Institutes of Health (NIH) rural-focused cancer control research bridge established to fund the closing of these chasms.&nbsp; But how can organizations enrolling cancer patients in rural areas of America be successful?
As it is TrialSite regularly educates as to the risks associated with patient recruitment challenges in clinical trials.&nbsp; The latest research points to however, some facilitators but also hindrances to support clinical practice engagement involving pragmatic clinical trials.