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HHS Awards $2 Million for New National Lupus Outreach and Clinical Trial Education Program
Today, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Minority Health (OMH) announced more than $2 million in grants to five organizations for a new initiative to demonstrate the effectiveness of interventions for increasing minority participation in lupus-related clinical trials. By improving clinical trial diversity, the National Lupus Outreach and Clinical Trial Education Program seeks to help to reduce lupus-related health disparities experienced by racial and ethnic minority populations.
“Lupus is more prevalent in women of color, especially Black/African American and Hispanic/Latina women,” said RADM Felicia Collins, M.D., Deputy Assistant Secretary for Minority Health. “By developing effective ways to increase diversity in lupus clinical trials, we are supporting researchers’ efforts to test and develop safe and effective treatments for disproportionately impacted populations.”
Lupus is a chronic autoimmune disease that causes inflammation in different tissues of the body, which leads to numerous clinical symptoms and poses disease management and treatment challenges for patients and health care providers. These attacks on healthy tissues cause inflammation and may in turn lead to permanent tissue damage. According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, about 9 out of 10 people diagnosed with lupus are women aged 15 to 44. African American women are three times more likely to be diagnosed with lupus, and they may develop the disease at a younger age and have more serious and life-threatening complications than non-Hispanic white women.
The five new awardees will conduct their projects across 10 states, including Alabama, California, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Texas. The project period for the National Lupus Outreach and Clinical Trial Education Program begins on September 30, 2021.
The awardees are:
For more information about OMH, visit www.minorityhealth.hhs.gov.
The Office of Minority Health (OMH) is dedicated to improving the health of racial and ethnic minority populations through the development of health policies and programs that will help eliminate health disparities.
