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You can do a lot of good while you’re sitting at home.
The pandemic has left many Virginians sheltering in place or working from their residences, and that’s left many of us with time on our hands. You can put some of that idle time to use and help improve community heath by taking a few minutes to sign up for a clinical medical trial or heath research study.
One study in need of volunteers is the VCU Massey Cancer Center initiative Together for Health Virginia. The study focuses on cancer rates in various communities in the commonwealth and the impact on those rates by factors including environment, wealth and poverty, and social and behavioral actions. Data will be used to determine what disparities exist, what can be done to address them, and how to improve practices and services. You can sign up at the website or find the project app in the App Store or Google Play.
To register, you must be at least 18 years old. You can drop out at any time. When you register, you’re asked a few basic questions: age, height, weight, whether you’ve ever been diagnosed with cancer, etc. It also asks for basic demographics such as where you live, your marital status and your household income.
Massey says it will use the study results to shape its education and community outreach efforts such as weight management, cancer screening and programs to stop tobacco use. Issues including health literacy, financial barriers and access to health care — and how they lead to cancer disparities in the commonwealth — will be examined as well.
App users can share fitness tracker data with researchers. Your information will not be shared or sold; it will only be available to the VCU researchers.
The project is about halfway to its goal of having 2,000 people complete the initial survey.
Researchers want a diverse, broad set of people to use the app to share information about their health over a long period of time, enabling them to compile data and discern trends about cancer disparities and other health issues in Virginia.
“The programs that we implement will only be effective if we have a deep grasp of all the factors that impact cancer risk, so it’s important that participants in the program represent all of the diverse populations living in Virginia,” says Bernard Fuemmeler, associate director for cancer prevention and control, in a release.
Such projects are crucial, according to Gerard Moeller, an associate vice president for clinical research at VCU and director of the Wright Center for Clinical and Translational Research. “The way we advance medicine is through clinical research,” he says.
Some studies only use people with a particular condition, while others, like the cancer registry, also need healthy volunteers. Moeller notes that finding healthy participants for a study can be difficult. There’s a time investment involved, and that could interfere with work. Some studies provide weekend time slots to volunteers so they won’t interfere with work, or they pay a stipend. “It is challenging for people, so most offer some kind of compensation for that,” he says.
Volunteers are solicited through community outreach, advertising or through advocacy groups or patient advocacy organizations. Moeller says that research studies have an unfortunate history of underserving minority populations, and that women and children also have not always been adequately included. That’s changed now, according to Moeller, who says that inclusion is a priority at VCU and that regulators now require that gender, race and age balance be considered.
Helping Out
You can register as a potential study participant through researchmatch.org.
The nonprofit has about 147,000 volunteers from across the nation enrolled in its database, with some 744 studies at 169 institutions. You enter your information and receive emails concerning studies that may be a match.
There’s also a study finder available through VCU that you can use to connect with research projects at the school that are seeking volunteers, either people with specific conditions or healthy individuals. You can search the database by condition, such as cancer, or by topic, such as women’s health.
Clinical Research Partners also has information on local studies that are enrolling participants. Information on trials at Bon Secours can be found at its Clinical Trials Portal. You can also find information on research projects through your doctor, and at some medical practice websites.
Learn More
The National Institutes of Health has an informative page on recruitment of healthy volunteers at clinicalcenter.nih.gov/recruit/volunteers.html. Find a study at clinicalstudies.info.nih.gov.
