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PURPOSE: The overall goals of this study were: 1) to determine whether (and if so, the extent to which) African-Americans differed in their willingness to participate in biomedical studies as compared to non-Hispanic Whites, and 2) to determine the influence that a range of demographic, psycho-social and medico-historical variables had on the comparative willingness of these groups to participate in biomedical research. This report will present preliminary findings on the first goal. METHODS: The Tuskegee Legacy Project (TLP) Questionnaire, a 60 item instrument developed within the Northeastern Minority Oral Health Research Center (a P50 Center supported by the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research at NIH), was administered via a random-digit dial telephone interview by the University of Alabama at Birmingham Survey Research Unit to 840 adult African-Americans and Whites in three city/county areas: Birmingham/Jefferson Cty, AL; Hartford/Hartford Cty, CT and Tuskegee/Macon Cty, AL. RESULTS: The response rates were 70%, 65% and 49% for Birmingham, Tuskegee and Hartford, respectively. A lower percentage of African-Americans (21%) reported that they were either somewhat or very likely to participate as biomedical research subjects than did Whites (29%) (p < 0.0001). In response to 7 prompts on `who' was conducting a study, African-Americans indicated they were less likely to participate than Whites on 4 specific prompts and more likely to participate on only 1 prompt (p < 0.006 for each). In response to 9 prompts on `what' a study asked participants to do, African-Americans indicated they were less likely to participate than Whites on only 2 specific prompts (p < 0.001 for each), more likely to participate on 2 prompts (p < 0.001), and were equally or near equally likely to participate on 5 prompts. CONCLUSIONS: The findings from this study show that African-Americans self-reported a lower willingness to participate in biomedical studies than did non-Hispanic Whites, and that African-American subjects were more influenced by the factor of `who' was running the study than by the factor of `what' they might have to do as study subjects. Study supported by grant P 50 DE10592 from the NIDCR at NIH. |