New resource available to help Duke researchers enroll older adults in clinical research
The 5Ts Framework was developed with support from the Duke CTSI Integrating Special Populations Core and Duke Pepper Center to help research teams maximize recruitment and retention of older adults in research. The 5T's website, linked above, provides practical advice for designing and conducting inclusive research studies. Research teams can search for timely and helpful recommendations that are relevant to their study, download resources for their study team to use, or contact us to receive 5Ts updates and news.
Although the 5Ts framework was designed to facilitate the inclusion of older adults in clinical research, the ISP Core has recognized and will promote its relevance as a tool to facilitate inclusion of multiple special populations.
We have expanded the 5Ts recommendations to African-American and LatinX populations across the lifespan and worked with CERI to conduct community consult studios (CCSs) with participants from these demographic groups and with research coordinators who have successfully recruited and retained these populations for clinical research studies.
Using the 5Ts, we generated recommendations on how to increase enrollment of African-Americans and LatinX participants in clinical research from the feedback we received from these CCSs. We plan to expand the 5Ts website to help investigators include other special populations in clinical research.