A Vanderbilt University Medical Center-led team developed a scale to measure trustworthiness in biomedical research among minority populations \u2013 a landmark tool for researchers to use to improve their own trustworthiness, and thus participation in research.<\/p>\n
The Perceptions of Research Trustworthiness (PoRT), described in an original investigation published in JAMA Network Open, is a groundbreaking tool designed as an ongoing gauge of perception of trust and distrust in biomedical research, said team leader Consuelo Wilkins, MD, professor of Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Wilkins worked on the tool for over a decade before it was successfully funded.<\/p>\n
By focusing on the trustworthiness of research and the investigators, the burden of \u2018trust\u2019 is moved from the participant to the researcher \u2013 a rebalancing of the historical approach to trust in science, Wilkins said.<\/p>\n
Usually, the onus of trusting the process is placed on the participant, who is perceived to have at least a latent trust in science.<\/p>\n
However, culture and experiences foster a deep-rooted distrust of science and biomedical research. Wilkins is ardently pushing for research institutions to take on the burden of being trustworthy and measure their success in earning and maintaining trust.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe critical message of this validation of PoRT is about how are we as researchers being trustworthy? So often we put the burden on the research volunteer, the patient, the community to be trusting of us. We\u2019re not asking, \u2018Are we worthy of their trust?\u2019 They have valid reasons to not trust researchers and institutions. We have to change how we communicate and act with cultural humility and acknowledge past exploitations while clearly illustrating the benefit of participating in their community and society. The hard work of \u2018trust\u2019 is on us,\u201d Wilkins said.<\/p>\n
The research team wants PoRT to be used in projects across the country to measure and understand how trust influences outcomes, especially behaviors and willingness to participate.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a process; the work is ongoing because you have to peel back the layers of trust to identify what is fueling trust or distrust in individual populations. We tend to put all the minority and marginalized groups in one bucket. However, our study shows that Black and Latinx groups had different levels of trust and distrust, and it wasn\u2019t on the same items on the scale. This points to the need for tailored strategies in approaching different populations, even in the same study,\u201d said Jennifer Cunningham-Erves, PhD, MPH, associate professor in Meharry Medical College\u2019s Department of Internal Medicine.<\/p>\n
The development and validation of PoRT took many years and multiple attempts at grant funding. Yet, being able to measure and gauge trustworthiness is vital to recruiting study participants who are representative of the population. This tool is a way for researchers to put commitments to equitable studies into action by actively improving themselves before launching the study.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe journey to measure abstract concepts such as \u2018trustworthiness,\u2019 along with the multidimensional relationship between \u2018trust\u2019 and \u2018distrust,\u2019 is exciting and challenging. We\u2019ve had confidence that researchers can behave in a more trustworthy manner even as people along the way said it can\u2019t be proved or reliably measured. I found that emboldening,\u201d said Sarah Stallings, PhD, research assistant professor in the Genetic Medicine division at VUMC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Vanderbilt University Medical Center-led team developed a scale to measure trustworthiness in biomedical research among minority populations \u2013 a landmark tool for researchers to use to improve their own trustworthiness, and thus participation in research. The Perceptions of Research Trustworthiness (PoRT), described in an original investigation published in JAMA Network Open, is a groundbreaking…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":231,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[11,46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-vm-around-the-medical-center","category-vm-summer-2023"],"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcDnub-WT","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/231"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3651"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3651\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4174,"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3651\/revisions\/4174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}