Expanding Access to Clinical Trials

In September 2021, the newly formed ACCC Community Oncology Research Institute (ACORI) met with leaders in the cancer care community to highlight the importance of diversifying clinical trials and identifying concrete strategies for engaging patients, caregivers, and their communities to strengthen cancer research. One of the action items articulated at that meeting was to “engage the community and intentionally understand their needs, barriers to participation in research, and community assets that can be leveraged to improve trial enrollment and retention.”

ACCC’s “Expanding Access to Clinical Trials Pilot Project (Phase I),” will gather important information about the current landscape of clinical research activity and the readiness of community-based cancer programs and practices to host cancer trials. ACCC members have identified barriers to community trials to include site-specific issues such as lack of resources, insufficient training and program infrastructure, and community-level issues such as mistrust of medical research and lack of transportation. The project will also collect survey and focus group data to identify gaps and barriers to cancer clinical trial participation and identify opportunities for expanding such participation.

For more information on this project, please contact the ACCC Provider Education department.