…circumvent a system that may be fraught with bias by reaching out directly to potential participants through social media.
To continue giving Black women a voice in their research efforts and outreach, Johnson recruited three Black women who attend Howard University to collaborate with the MBC Project. These women have enlisted a team of students at Howard to raise awareness on their campus and get students to sign up to post, share and like information about the MBC Project and be social media amplifiers to get the message out through their social networks.
It is estimated that there are more than 150,000 women living with metastatic breast cancer in the United States. The MBC Project is working to use social media to find those women and be sure that black women are not left behind in research efforts yet again.
Dr. Painter was elated to report that the MBC Project just surpassed 4,000 enrollees since they begin their work in October of 2015. She also shared their plans to prioritize communities that have been underrepresented in research. Any samples that they receive from African-American men or women, or Latino men or women will be prioritized for sequencing.
Participants will find that it only takes three steps.
Step 1. Tell them about yourself. Click “Count Me In” and complete a simple online form to tell them about yourself and your cancer.
Step 2. Give them permission to collect your samples and data. After you fill out the online survey, they will ask you to fill out an online consent form that requests your permission to obtain copies of your medical records and some of your stored tumor tissue. They’ll also send you a simple kit to collect a saliva sample. They will do the rest.
Step 3. Learn with them along the way. Throughout the project, they will provide you with regular updates about the status of the project and share any discoveries that you have enabled them to make.
Mary Tate is an MD/MPH candidate at Harvard. She is deeply invested in improving the health of women and children. Following completion of her medical school training in 2018, she will be pursuing obstetrics and gynecology residency.