November Message from the Directors: Promoting diversity, equity and inclusion in research
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The annual CTSA Program meeting was held in-person in early November with a thematic focus on “Achieving Health Equity Through the Science of Translation.” Keynote sessions included a focus on improving diversity of participants in clinical trials, training a diverse research workforce, engaging the community, and developing pathways to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) as a component of research that influences real world outcomes.
At UIC, we have been strong and steady in our valuing DEI and have an excellent history and success with prioritizing the needs of individuals from marginalized and minoritized communities that have often dealt with stigmatization or who have heightened risks from research. However, there is still more we can do and achieve. Every module of the CCTS has the ability to help study teams think through how they might serve as a bridge between research and the communities we serve and hope to impact, and how to enhance research that advances health equities.
Although our consultants and staff strive to be responsive to investigators’ specific aims or data, we are encouraging all our personnel to engage with investigators more directly about DEI issues. For example, we urge any researcher conducting new data collection to consult with our Community Engagement core about ways to enhance recruitment and retention of minoritized groups. For researchers with secondary analyses (e.g., health record data), our consultants should ask if the investigators would like a consult with the biostatistics group to see how they might examine racial/ethnic/social determinants of health differences or include those factors in their models. Finally, through referral to our Community Engagement Advisory Board, all CCTS consultants can assist campus researchers in developing a community impact statement about their work, including framing and receiving feedback about how their results translate into real world settings that matter to the communities.
We realize that these types of questions from our consultants may push the envelope and comfort level of how UIC investigators are used to conducting research. However, there are several important reasons for this shift in perspective:
- It reminds the research community about the importance of thinking through DEI issues;
- it allows CCTS cores and programs to collectively partner with study teams in interventions that are meaningful to diverse communities; and
- it helps improve the translational value of the research we support.
Together, we can build stronger pathways to advance DEI in UIC’s research portfolio.