Webinar: Increasing Diversity among Principal Investigators & the Clinical Trial Community
Thursday, September 1, 2022 | 11 AM - 12 PM CST
This educational program will explore the relationship between communities of color, who are often underrepresented in clinical trials, and diverse teams of principal investigators. The discussion will focus on how building diverse teams of healthcare professionals and clinical trialists may result in better clinical trial patient recruitment and overall trial success. A 2020 study indicated that only 23% of African Americans and 26% of Latin Americans have a physician that shares the same race or ethnicity, while for white Americans, that number is 82% (1). Moreover, research often shows that minority patients prefer to be treated by minority doctors, and racial concordance between patients and providers may lead to better health outcomes. For example, in an analysis of over 100,000 patient surveys from 2014 to 2017, a team of Penn Medicine researchers found that patients were more likely to give the maximum patient rating score when they shared the same racial or ethnic background as their physician (2). This educational program convenes a group of clinical trial experts to discuss how increasing diversity among the ranks of providers, principal investigators, and other clinical trial professionals may result improve clinical trial recruitment among communities of color. This program is in partnership with the Center for Healthcare Innovation.
Series Host
Dr. Neelum Aggarwal, MD
CHI Board of Directors
Chief Diversity Officer at American Medical Women’s Association
Associate Professor, Departments of Neurological Sciences and the Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center at Rush University Medical Center
Senior Neurologist for the Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center (RADC)
Research Director at the Rush Heart Center for Women
Dr. Neelum T. Aggarwal, MD, is the Chief Diversity Officer at American Medical Women’s Association and Associate Professor, Departments of Neurological Sciences and the Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center at Rush University Medical Center. She is the Senior Neurologist for the Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center (RADC), Research Director at the Rush Heart Center for Women, and serves as the Principal Investigator and Site Principal Investigator for multiple NIA funded research studies and consortia led clinical trials. Her work focuses on how sex, gender and social determinants of health are associated with risk, detection and treatment of cognitive changes associated with dementia. Dr. Aggarwal is a long-standing voice for community based research, clinical trial participation, public health initiatives, both in Chicago and nationally. She serves as the Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer for the American Medical Women’s Association (AMWA), and was past chair of the Governing Council of the American Medical Association- Women's Physician Section.
Currently, she co chairs the Inclusion, Diversity and Education in Alzheimer's Disease - Outreach and Policy subcommittee and the Advisory Group on Risk Evidence Education for Dementia. As the Strategic Advisor for the Science Runway, a Chicago Innovation Mentor (CIM) and past National Chair for the Women in Bio Mentoring, Advisors and Peers Committee, she is uniquely positioned to work with diverse groups of colleagues, mentor and sponsor women and men in the medical, life sciences and STEM sectors. She completed her medical degree from the Rosalind Franklin University - Chicago Medical School, completed her neurology residency at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, Michigan, and completed an aging and neurodegenerative disorders fellowship at the Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center.
Collins, K. S., Hughes, D. L., Doty, M. M., Ives, B. L., Edwards, J. N., & Tenney, K. (2002). Diverse communities, common concerns: assessing health care quality for minority Americans. New York: Commonwealth Fund.
Takeshita, J., Wang, S., Loren, A. W., Mitra, N., Shults, J., Shin, D. B., & Sawinski, D. L. (2020). Association of Racial/Ethnic and Gender Concordance Between Patients and Physicians With Patient Experience Ratings. JAMA network open, 3(11), e2024583. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.24583