Enhancing the Participation of African Americans in Health-Related Genetic Research : Findings of a Collaborative Academic and Community-Based Research Study

Abstract EN

The involvement of African Americans in research has long been expressed as a concern by the scientific community.

While efforts have been undertaken to identify factors inhibiting the participation of African Americans in health-related research, few efforts have been undertaken to have highlight factors associated with their engagement of health-related research.

An exploratory study of factors presumed to be associated with participation in health-related research was conducted among a nonprobability sample of African Americans (n=212) from a large urban community in the Midwest.

The study was guided by a framework that hypothesized the influence of knowledge, beliefs, and perceptions about genetics and the involvement of providers in decision-making on willingness to participate in health-related genetic research.

The results revealed that knowledge, beliefs, and perceptions about genetics and the involvement of providers were associated with willingness to engage in health-related genetic research (P<.05).

The most interesting, however, was that 88.7% of the participants who had not previously been involved in a health-related study who expressed a willingness to participate reported that they “had never been asked.” Study findings suggest the need for research that further examines factors associated with the involvement of African Americans in health-related genetic research.