From Research Teams to Participants – Addressing Access Barriers is a Key to Progress
Accessibility is defined as the quality of being able to be reached or entered, obtained or used, easily understood or appreciated. Consider your journey from childhood to now. Do any barriers to access stand out in your memory? It could be something as central to life as accessing food in grocery stores via multiple modes of transportation or as unsuspectingly complex as navigating the financial aid process to ensure that you were able to complete higher education.
In many of the same ways that access to healthcare remains a challenge for many populations, similar barriers exist for access to clinical research. Whether we’re focusing on physical, sociocultural, or psychological barriers to access clinical research participation opportunities or results from studies, we can’t talk about accessibility without identifying and understanding actual and perceived barriers inhibiting access (see recommended reading below).
A search in PubMed.gov using the search term “accessibility” resulted in 624,210 results. Some of the topics focused on data accessibility, global access to medical procedures, and technological solutions to improve accessibility. A common thread centered special populations and challenges experienced with regard to their unique accessibility challenges. When we fail to consider diverse perspectives and experiences, we fail to achieve widespread accessibility.
Consider how accessibility plays a role in your research program.
Reflection
- How do you ensure that your study team feels that resources and support are accessible in their role?
- What do your research participants report as challenges to participation in studies?
- When you consider the research participant journey, are your studies easily obtained (e.g., available via a centralized place on the Internet) and understood (e.g., Do research participants have a clear idea whether or not they might be eligible to participate in your study?)?
- If a new researcher or researcher from another institution wanted to collaborate with you, are you easily reached (e.g., public contact information) and used (e.g., research interests and publications associated with your public profile(s) help someone identify whether your interest align with their focus)?
Recommended Reading
Curious about the rest of the rest of the words in the DEI Glossary? Review the entire glossary on our website.