Blacks Willing To Participate in Medical Research Despite Awareness of Tuskegee Study, According to Research
"Awareness of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study and the U.S. Presidential Apology and Their Influence on Minority Participation in Biomedical Research," American Journal of Public Health: The study examined the influence of awareness of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study and former President Bill Clinton's public apology for the experiment on the willingness of blacks, whites and Hispanics to participate in medical research. For the study, researcher Ralph Katz of New York University College of Dentistry's Department of Epidemiology and Health Promotion and colleagues administered questionnaires to 1,133 adults in Alabama, Connecticut and Texas between March 1999 and November 2000. The survey asked questions related to minorities' recruitment in biomedical studies. Researchers found that compared with whites, blacks were four times as likely to be aware of the Tuskegee study and more than twice as likely to have correctly named Clinton as the president who made the public apology for the experiment. Blacks also were two to three times more likely than whites to be willing to participate in biomedical research despite their knowledge of the history of the study or Clinton's apology. Researchers concluded that the information likely had been "more shocking" and had a "stronger negative impact" on whites than blacks (Katz et al., AJPH, June 2008).
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