Even today, trust in the medical system is eroded because of some doctor’s dismissive attitude toward patients of color. Telling patients it’s all in their heads, or discounting their pain as not severe, or even questioning the patients’ sincerity, assuming they are just seeking drugs.
The findings in this study are so important in giving insight into the feelings of a large part of the population and will, hopefully, open the eyes of the medical community. “We don’t want any community left behind. And so, when patients don’t feel safe, they don’t feel respected, they don’t feel valued, then they are less likely to seek medical treatment,” states Highsmith.
There are a couple of things at play, this study identified the lack of access to quality medical care in these communities, but it also identified the lack of trust.
Building bridges to trust can start in hospitals in the communities of these patients instead of the Ivy League institutions.
And if you want to engage Black communities and get them invested in something, go to their neighborhood trusted spaces according to Highsmith. “I believe in the three ‘Bs’ in the Black community, the bishop, the barbershop, and the beauty salon. That’s where you can talk to people,” she insists.
Highsmith maintains that there must be out-of-the-box thinking to reach people in Black communities. “How do we think about engagement with non-traditional stakeholders. Where are people getting information? Where are people congregating and how do we get into those spaces? We [Genentech]have been working on advancing inclusive research since 2017 before it became the thing to do. For us, we have several approaches to advancing inclusive research. One is recruitment. Represented in the patient population so they participate in clinical studies. Because right now, the majority of clinical studies are filled with whites. Only about 5 – 15% of clinical trials have people who are Asian, Hispanic, Blacks, and Native Americans. So, how do we recruit more representative populations? Secondly, how do we think about advancing personalized healthcare? What I mean by this is the treatment algorithms that are out here today. Artificial Intelligence is being used by pharma companies and healthcare systems and these algorithms are producing treatment systems for patients.”