How Financial Incentives Impact Clinical Trial Enrollment

ABSTRACT Clinical trials are critically important for medical advancement, as they provide scientifically valid data on new medications and drugs being developed. Many researchers, however, struggle with outreach to socioeconomically disadvantaged populations, leading to underrepresentation and exclusion of those demographics in clinical trials. This lack of representation leads to health disparities because marginalized groups may not receive treatments optimized for their needs, which results in therapies that are less effective or have unexpected side effects. Failing to include diverse groups can result in missed opportunities to discover insights about how different populations respond to therapies. This paper provides an analysis of English-language clinical trials that include financial incentives in their procedures. Trial designs varied across studies; some were conducted online rather than in person, and some included hospitalized participants while others did not. Payment strategies were either constant or varied. These different trial designs all had unique impacts on the results of the experiment. Incentives also raised some ethical concerns in terms of a lack of transparency in regulations and safety hazards. However, there is not enough detailed research on the impacts of financial incentives; more experiments on the specific effects (undue inducement) and best way of providing incentives should be conducted. It is important to conduct more research on this to promote diversity and accessibility of clinical trials in order to ensure more equitable access to healthcare.