Minority Recruitment in Hereditary Breast Cancer Research

Minority Recruitment in Hereditary Breast Cancer Research

¹Abramson Cancer Center and Department of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; ²Department of Behavioral Science, University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas; ³Chronic Disease Prevention and Control Research Center, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas; ⁴Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, Maryland; ⁵Department of Surgery, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina; and ⁶Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, Washington

Requests for reprints:
Chanita Hughes, Abramson Cancer Center and Department of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania, 3535 Market Street, Suite 4100, Philadelphia, PA 19104. Phone: 215-746-7144; Fax: 215-746-7140. E-mail: chanita{at}mail.med.upenn.edu

Abstract

Although recruitment of ethnic and racial minorities in medical research has been evaluated in several studies, much less is known about the methods used to recruit these populations to participate in cancer genetics research. This report reviews the resources that have been used to identify and recruit ethnic and racial minorities to participate in hereditary breast cancer research. Overall, hospital-based resources were used most often to identify potential subjects, and active recruitment methods were used most frequently to enroll eligible subjects. This review suggests that there appears to be a finite number of resources and strategies to identify and recruit potential subjects to participate in cancer genetics research; however, options for improving awareness about cancer genetics research among ethnic and racial minorities have not been extensively evaluated. To study ethnic and racial minority participation in cancer genetics research, stronger evaluation components will need to be integrated into research methods. Both observational and experimental studies are needed to determine resources that are most effective for identifying potential subjects who are ethnic and racial minorities and to evaluate the effects of different recruitment strategies on enrollment decisions among these populations.

Footnotes

↵7 D. Bowen. Minority recruitment in the cancer genetics research: identification of problems and opportunities for new research. Presented at the Cancer Genetics Network Steering Committee Meeting, 2002, Reston, VA.
↵8 C. Hughes, C. Lerman, J. Benkendorf. Participation of African American women in BRCA1 pretest education. Presented at the American Society of Preventive Oncology Annual Conference, 1998, Bethesda, MD.
↵9 A.G. Ramirez, P. McDonald, M. Chapa, K. Gallion. Minority recruitment to clinical trials. Presented at the Cancer Genetics Network Steering Committee Meeting, 2002, Reston, VA.
↵10 The international study conducted by Narod et al. was included in this report because almost half of study subjects were recruited from clinics in the United States.
Grant support: NIH/National Cancer Institute grant U24CA078156 and Department of Defense grant DAMD17-00-1-0262 (C. Hughes).
The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. This article must therefore be hereby marked advertisement in accordance with 18 U.S.C. Section 1734 solely to indicate this fact.
Note: The Cancer Genetics Network is a multicenter consortium comprising the following centers participating in the preparation of this article: Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, WA (Deborah Bowen, PhD, Principal Investigator), University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX (Louise Strong, MD, Principal Investigator), University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA (Barbara Weber, MD, Principal Investigator), and Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC (Joellen Schildkraut, PhD, Principal Investigator).
- Accepted February 12, 2004.
- Received December 30, 2002.
- Revision received February 12, 2004.