Remote clinical trials with inclusive social media recruitment may help improve racial, ethnic, and geographic diversity among clinical trial participants, according to a US study published early this week in JAMA Network Open.University of Washington at Seattle researchers led the secondary analysis of 1,410 participants in three completed randomized COVID-19 clinical trials.
They compared two remote trials with a traditional clinic-based study that took place at the same time from March to August 2020, using Google Analytics data to measure online participant engagement and recruitment.
The team analyzed data from April to August 2021.Ads on Facebook, Google, Twitter, RedditThe two remote studies involved early COVID-19 treatment and the use of hydroxychloroquine as postexposure prophylaxis, respectively, and the clinic-based trial focused on expanded access to convalescent plasma as a treatment.
All three studies had clinical sites in Seattle, and the remote trials also had sites in New York, Maryland, Massachusetts, Illinois, Louisiana, and California.The remote trials used ads on Facebook, Google, Twitter, and Reddit that featured racial and ethnic minorities to enroll 929 participants with recent COVID-19 exposure and 231 participants who tested positive for the virus.