The Effects of Underrepresentation of People of Color in COVID-19 Vaccine Trials

'As the coronavirus death toll in the U.S. hovers around 200,000, Black, Latino, and Native Americans populations have made up a disproportionate amount of that total, with Black Americans, in particular, being more than twice as likely as white Americans to die from COVID-19. But many of the companies working to develop a vaccine have so far fallen short when it comes to recruiting people of color to participate in trials. Some of the challenges in recruitment are connected to the legacy of racist experimentation on communities of color by white doctors in the U.S. But if the recruitment process isn’t improved, the vaccines could end up overlooking key health disparities among different racial demographics in the U.S.. The Takeaway spoke with Dr. Chris Pernell, public health physician at University Hospital in Newark, NJ, and Dr. Hala Borno, assistant professor of Medicine at UCSF.'