ASCO-ACCC Initiative

On July 25, the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and the Association of Community Cancer Centers (ACCC) jointly released resources to help research sites increase the racial and ethnic equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) in cancer clinical trials.

The Just ASK™ Training Program and Site Self-Assessment are available free-of-charge and represent a full and complementary set of resources that can help research sites address barriers to participation in cancer clinical trials among racial and ethnic populations that have been historically underrepresented.

• The ASCO-ACCC Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Research Site Self-Assessment helps research sites identify systemic areas that are known to affect the diversity of clinical trials and provides site-specific recommendations to modify rules and procedures.
• The Just ASK™ Training Program identifies opportunities for change at the individual level and provides real-world examples to enhance understanding of participants.
• The Just ASK™ Training Facilitation Guide provides guidance to continue the conversation around implicit biases after the initial training.

The availability of the Just ASK™ Training Program and Site Self-Assessment follows the recent publication of the ASCO-ACCC Research Statement “Increasing Racial and Ethnic Diversity in Cancer Clinical Trials,” which outlines specific actions for individual stakeholders in the cancer clinical trial ecosystem to increase diversity in research participation.  These recommendations—which are summarized in this illustration—focus on key areas that address barriers to cancer clinical trials.

The three resources directly address some of the recommendations in the Research Statement.  

An annotated reference list of detailed strategies and resources is also available online. The list is not exhaustive. It is intended to provide examples of strategies for research sites to increase EDI in cancer clinical trials and to stimulate interest in research to establish more evidence-based strategies that result in increased participation of patients historically underrepresented in clinical trials.

The development and release of these resources is an important milestone in the ASCO-ACCC Initiative to Increase Racial and Ethnic Diversity in Clinical Trials. The initiative is led by a steering group of EDI experts, patient advocates, and other stakeholders. ASCO and ACCC formed a Patient Partners Advisory Group, which also informs the work of the collaboration, and includes cancer research advocates who represent racial and ethnic minority populations. The steering group sought to answer the call from the oncology community for tangible resources to help improve representation in cancer clinical trials – as evidenced by the eager involvement of 75 research sites in the pilot study. With the Research Site Self-Assessment, Training Program, Facilitation Guide, and Research Statement recommendations, it is ASCO and ACCC’s hope that sites feel supported and empowered to make change.

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

ASCO and the Association of Community Cancer Centers (ACCC) hosted a joint virtual discussion about new resources to help diversify participation in cancer clinical trials. ASCO and ACCC have been collaborating to develop solutions to address participation disparities since 2020, and recently released two manuscripts detailing the results from a pilot program that led to the development and release of two free, online resources for cancer research sites.