Our 2020 Health Equity Innovation Fund has awarded $10 million in grants to a broad range of organizations pursuing innovative solutions in advancing inclusive research and promoting equity in care. One grantee is the Participatory Action for Access to Clinical Trials (PAACT) project, which brings together a range of stakeholders — from public health organizations to community advocacy groups — to address the barriers to inclusion in clinical studies.

The PAACT initiative, funded by a $750,000 grant from the 2020 Health Equity Innovation Fund, aims to dramatically improve representation among the Black/African American community and other historically underrepresented groups in cancer clinical studies.

One area of focus is breast cancer research. Black/African American and White women had nearly identical incidence and mortality rates for breast cancer until the 1980s, when a gap in diagnosis rates and outcomes was detected. This is due to the high incidence of triple-negative breast cancer in Black/African American patients and in part as a result of the underrepresentation of Black/African American patients in clinical studies. “There was a disproportionate benefit to hormone therapy for white women as compared to Black/African American women,” says Dr. Evelyn Jiagge, head of breast cancer research and assistant professor at Henry Ford Breast Cancer Research in Detroit and PAACT principal investigator.

In partnership with the Detroit Community-Academic Urban Research Center (Detroit URC), PAACT is deploying an approach—called Community-Based Participatory Research—to bring diverse stakeholders into the clinical research process—from study design to patient recruitment and beyond. “We are learning and we are finding new solutions,” says Jiagge.