Examining Retention Differences between Hispanic and non-Hispanic Participants in Clinical Trials

The purpose of this grant will be to study if the reasons why elderly Latinx participants drop out of Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) based clinical trials is similar to why young Latinx adults drop out of clinical trials. Young adult Latinx populations have been found to drop out of studies due to structural inequities. Older Latinx populations (age 55>) who participated in an AD related clinical trial in Southern California within the last 5 years will be studied (N = 499). Two groups will be made and will have an equal number of participants in each group (N = 249). One group will be participants who completed an AD clinical trial and the other group will be participants who did not complete an AD clinical trial. These participants will be asked questions relating to why they completed or withdrew from their study, what researchers did well, and how researchers could improve for future studies. They will also be asked demographic questions and asked to answer the PHQ-9 to evaluate if there is a correlation between depression rates and dropping out or completing studies. We will be using quantitative analysis by coding participant responses to compare various reasonings for dropping out and staying within studies. Assuming our P-value is significant, this will showcase that structural inequities are the main reason why elderly Latinx participants drop out of AD related research studies, which is consistent with our hypothesis. Structural inequities were also the same reason why younger Latinx adults dropped out of their studies. Overall our study highlights the need for researchers to be accommodating and culturally sensitive to minority participants as they are more susceptible to structural inequities that may impede on their study retention.