CHDS faculty Ankur Pandya presented Quantifying the Value of Representation in Clinical Trials at an Office of Educational Programs ‘Hot Topics’ seminar. Historically, clinical trials have often had underenrollment of historically excluded subgroups, such as women and racial and ethnic minority populations. Pandya gave an overview of the drawbacks of this unequal enrollment and potential advantages of more representative enrollment.
If a treatment’s effects vary by subgroups, then failing to include sufficient subgroup numbers could lead to inaccurate trial results; it potentially compromises the generalizability of the findings to the entire population. Although increased representation in trials could increase study costs, lack of representation is estimated to cost hundreds of billions of dollars in the U.S. Pandya’s framework uses health decision science methods to weigh potential trade-offs between study costs, population-level health and cost outcomes, and impacts on existing health disparities. This research was funded by a pilot grant from the Harvard Catalyst.
Learn more: Read the National Academies study report, Improving Representation in Clinical Trials and Research
Learn more: Read the Harvard Catalyst interview with Pandya, Decision-Making Science & Clinical Trials
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