Webinar: Health Equity Concerns of Decentralized Clinical Trials
Thursday, June 2, 2022 | 11 AM - 12 PM CST
PART 5 OF CHI’S 10-PART SERIES: FROM RESEARCHER TO PATIENT - MAKING CLINICAL TRIALS MORE DIVERSE
About the Webinar
The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated a paradigm shift in the execution of clinical trials from site-based to decentralized trials, emphasizing increasing convenience and access to patients. Regulators’ sentiment is in lockstep with the industry, issuing guidance for implementing the use of telemedicine services, remote monitoring, and home health visits. As broader adoption of decentralized trial activities continues, addressing health equity concerns around the “digital divide” or unequal access to internet technologies between low and high socioeconomic status (SES) populations must also be broad. Patient recruitment strategies will need to mitigate the barriers experienced by low SES populations who more commonly lack the prerequisite tools, such as broadband internet, to benefit from the decentralized services such as electronic consent and video conferencing. According to the Health and Human Services (HHS), 45% of people in poverty lacked broadband internet, with 26% having no internet access in 2019. This digital disparity becomes more pronounced based on age, race/ethnicity, and geography. Low SES minority groups such as African Americans (57%) and Latinos (52%) were less likely to have broadband internet when compared to their White (44%) counterparts. The digital gap is just as stark in the elderly groups, with 40% of those living in poverty lacking internet access. Finally, low SES households living in non-metropolitan areas were 7% less likely to have internet access than their metropolitan dwelling counterparts. Low SES and minority populations have long been underrepresented in clinical trials. As such, decentralized or hybrid clinical trial designs could benefit from incorporating health equity best practices into enrollment and retention plans. By convening many of the country’s leading clinical trial and diversity experts, physicians, scholars, authors, and key opinion leaders, this program will explore health equity concerns of decentralized clinical trials in the U.S. This program will also provide best practices, new insights, and novel trends in building a more diverse and inclusive clinical trial ecosystem in the U.S. to explore health equity concerns in decentralized clinical trials.
Series Host
Dr. Neelum Aggarwal, MD
Professor, Department of Neurological Sciences, Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center at Rush University Medical Center
Dr. Neelum T. Aggarwal, MD, is the Chief Diversity Officer at American Medical Women’s Association and Associate Professor, Departments of Neurological Sciences and the Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center at Rush University Medical Center. She is the Senior Neurologist for the Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center (RADC), Research Director at the Rush Heart Center for Women, and serves as the Principal Investigator and Site Principal Investigator for multiple NIA funded research studies and consortia led clinical trials. Her work focuses on how sex, gender and social determinants of health are associated with risk, detection and treatment of cognitive changes associated with dementia. Dr. Aggarwal is a long-standing voice for community based research, clinical trial participation, public health initiatives, both in Chicago and nationally. She serves as the Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer for the American Medical Women’s Association (AMWA), and was past chair of the Governing Council of the American Medical Association- Women's Physician Section.
Currently, she co chairs the Inclusion, Diversity and Education in Alzheimer's Disease - Outreach and Policy subcommittee and the Advisory Group on Risk Evidence Education for Dementia. As the Strategic Advisor for the Science Runway, a Chicago Innovation Mentor (CIM) and past National Chair for the Women in Bio Mentoring, Advisors and Peers Committee, she is uniquely positioned to work with diverse groups of colleagues, mentor and sponsor women and men in the medical, life sciences and STEM sectors. She completed her medical degree from the Rosalind Franklin University - Chicago Medical School, completed her neurology residency at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, Michigan, and completed an aging and neurodegenerative disorders fellowship at the Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center.
Distinguished Speakers
Dr. Fan Gao, PhD, MS
Principal, ZS Associates
Fan is part of ZS’s R&D Excellence Practice. She leads the Digital & Decentralized Trials Vertical in Clinical Development. She works in life sciences and focuses on leveraging digital innovation to expand patient access to clinical research, improve patient outcomes, and accelerate medicine development.
Fan is a contributor to ZS’s thought leadership around Decentralized Clinical Trials:
https://www.appliedclinicaltrialsonline.com/view/why-decentralized-clinical-trials-are-the-way-of-the-future. She hosted the ZS Decentralized Trials Roundtable with 11 pharmaceutical sponsors in 2021 and is the ZS Leadership Representative for DTRA (Decentralized Trials & Research Alliance).
Dr. Scott Treiber, PhD, MBA
Vice President, Strategic Development, Synteract
Experienced executive with over 29 years of increasing responsibility in the biopharmaceutical and device industry. Expertise in clinical operations, clinical development, business development, medical affairs, data management/statistics and pharmacovigilance/safety. Broad therapeutic expertise - neuroscience, pain, infectious disease, women's health, endocrine/metabolic and GI. Managed budgets (>$150M), resources, metrics and quality systems.
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