At the University of South Florida, researchers have been looking into the genetics makeups of different individuals. They believe that people tend to see one and another as one ethnicity, where in reality people come from all different backgrounds. However, at USF researchers found that “African Americans are dying 10 years earlier than their Caucasian peers.” This has urged researchers to call fro more minorities to sign up for clinical studies to help expose more effect treatments for patients of diverse ethnic backgrounds.
“We think that the medications or the treatments can be universally applied to everybody, but we are discovering that more ethnic and cultural background understanding is needed,” said Dr. Kevin Sneed of USF Health (check out the article).
Recent case studies have revealed that the numbers of minority participants in clinical studies have decreased due to the patient’s lack of program knowledge of the program and treatment options for specific disease ailments. Ultimately, researchers hope to increase the number of minority participants to discover more effective treatment tactics to assist the public.
To read additional coverage on this topic, see this story and video by the University of South Florida here.