Grant Number:	3R01CA251547-04S1 Interpret this number
Primary Investigator:	Smith, Cardinale
Organization:	Icahn School Of Medicine At Mount Sinai
Project Title:	The Role of Implicit Bias on Outcomes of Patients with Advanced Solid Cancers
Fiscal Year:	2024

Project Summary Despite advancements in healthcare and cancer treatments, a notable disparity in cancer outcomes persists among different racial and ethnic groups. While factors like healthcare insurance expansion, early detection, new treatments, and smoking cessation have contributed to increased survival rates, African Americans and ethnic minorities continue to face disparate outcomes. The American Cancer Society highlights that African Americans experience later diagnoses, lower screening rates, greater illness burden, the highest death rates, and the shortest survival times compared to other racial groups. Clinical trials have the potential to enhance outcomes, nonetheless, disparities persist in the enrollment of Black and Hispanic individuals in cancer clinical trials. Over the past two decades, there has been a significant decline in the participation of minority patients in clinical trials, and this gap has widened further in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. Efforts to address these disparities have included interventions like provider bias training and various methods to boost enrollment of racial and ethnic minorities in clinical trials. However, the effectiveness of these interventions remains limited without widespread implementation. While patient-clinician communication is identified as a crucial factor in improving clinical trial accrual, existing studies lack comprehensive geographical and demographic testing. This study aims to fill these gaps by employing a tool based on community input and co-developing suitable criteria for scoring the quality and content around clinical trial discussions. Recognizing the impact of effective communication on overall health, healthcare literacy, treatment adherence, trust-building, and reducing disparities, the study seeks to provide clinicians with tools to facilitate discussions with minorities about cancer clinical trials, addressing a critical need in the current landscape of cancer care. The importance of this study lies in its exploration of this phenomenon in a manner that has not been extensively investigated, offering a unique perspective on the challenges faced by minority populations in accessing and participating in clinical trials. This supplement will provide essential experience, partnerships, and preliminary data for my career development. It will be a catalyst for applying for an NIH R-level grant to investigate a communication intervention for improving clinical trial accrual among minoritized cancer patients. The mentorship plan, led by an experienced team dedicated to supporting underrepresented researchers, will help me achieve my goal of becoming an established researcher through regular meetings, training, and guidance.





None. See parent grant details.