BACKGROUND
Recruiting African Americans (AAs) and other marginalized communities
into genomic-related health research is challenging and widespread,
ranging from studies involving DNA sequencing to gene-drug interactions.
George, Duran, & Norris (2014) attribute the primary reason
for this is due to mistrust in
researchers. Other studies demonstrate that AAs may be more difficult to
recruit based on mistrust of the health care system, misuse of genomic
data, privacy and confidentiality concerns, and awareness of unethical
research practices in human experimentation, like the 1932 Tuskegee
Syphilis Study (Otado et al., 2015; Sankaré et al., 2015; Spence &
Oltmanns, 2011). Other factors, such as socioeconomic status and the
type of intervention being studied have been reported and historically,
have been shown to disproportionately affect AA participation in
research compared to other communities. Participation barriers influence
health disparities which may lead to missed economic opportunities and
health promotion, inequalities, premature death, and reduced quality of
life.