Browsing by Author "Wilfond, Benjamin S."

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    An ethics framework for consolidating and prioritizing COVID-19 clinical trials
    (Sage, 2021) Meyer, Michelle N.; Gelinas, Luke; Bierer, Barbara E.; Chandros Hull, Sara; Joffe, Steven; Magnus, David; Mohapatra, Seema; Sharp, Richard R.; Spector-Bagdady, Kayte; Sugarman, Jeremy; Wilfond, Benjamin S.; Fernandez Lynch, Holly; Robert H. McKinney School of Law
    Given the dearth of established safe and effective interventions to respond to COVID-19, there is an urgent ethical imperative to conduct meaningful clinical research. The good news is that interventions to be tested are not in short supply. Unfortunately, the human and material resources needed to conduct these trials are finite. It is essential that trials be robust and meet enrollment targets and that lower-quality studies not be permitted to displace higher-quality studies, delaying answers to critical questions. Yet, with few exceptions, existing research review bodies and processes are not designed to ensure these conditions are satisfied. To meet this challenge, we offer guidance for research institutions about how to ethically consolidate and prioritize COVID-19 clinical trials, while recognizing that consolidation and prioritization should also take place upstream (among manufacturers and funders) and at a higher level (e.g., nationally). In our proposed three-stage process, trials must first meet threshold criteria. Those that do are evaluated in a second stage to determine whether the institution has sufficient capacity to support all proposed trials. If it does not, the third stage entails evaluating studies against two additional sets of comparative prioritization criteria: those specific to the study and those that aim to advance diversification of an institution’s research portfolio. To implement these criteria fairly, we propose that research institutions form COVID-19 research prioritization committees. We briefly discuss some important attributes of these committees, drawing on the authors’ experiences at our respective institutions. Although we focus on clinical trials of COVID-19 therapeutics, our guidance should prove useful for other kinds of COVID-19 research, as well as non-pandemic research, which can raise similar challenges due to the scarcity of research resources.
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    Building a Central Repository for Research Ethics Consultation Data: A Proposal for a Standard Data Collection Tool
    (ACTS, 2015-08-01) Cho, Mildred K.; Taylor, Holly; McCormick, Jennifer B.; Anderson, Nick; Barnard, David; Boyle, Mary B.; Capron, Alexander M.; Dorfman, Elizabeth; Havard, Kathryn; Reider, Carson; Sadler, John; Schwartz, Peter H.; Sharp, Richard R.; Danis, Marion; Wilfond, Benjamin S.; Department of Philosophy, IU School of Liberal Arts
    Clinical research ethics consultation services have been established across academic health centers over the past decade. This paper presents the results of collaboration within the CTSA consortium to develop a standard approach to the collection of research ethics consultation information to serve as a foundation for quality improvement, education, and research efforts. This approach includes categorizing and documenting descriptive information about the requestor, research project, the ethical question, the consult process, and describing the basic structure for a consult note. This paper also explores challenges in determining how to share some of this information between collaborating institutions related to concerns about confidentially, data quality, and informatics. While there is much still to be learned to improve the process of clinical research ethics consultation, these tools can advance these efforts, which, in turn, can facilitate the ethical conduct of research.
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    Parental Enrollment Decision-Making for a Neonatal Clinical Trial
    (Elsevier, 2021) Weiss, Elliott Mark; Guttmann, Katherine F.; Olszewski, Aleksandra E.; Magnus, Brooke E.; Li, Sijia; Kim, Scott Y. H.; Shah, Anita R.; Juul, Sandra E.; Wu, Yvonne W.; Ahmad, Kaashif A.; Bendel-Stenzel, Ellen; Isaza, Natalia A.; Lampland, Andrea L.; Mathur, Amit M.; Rao, Rakesh; Riley, David; Russell, David G.; Salih, Zeynep N. I.; Torr, Carrie B.; Weitkamp, Joern-Hendrik; Anani, Uchenna E.; Chang, Taeun; Dudley, Juanita; Flibotte, John; Havrilla, Erin M.; O'Kane, Alexandra C.; Perez, Krystle; Stanley, Brenda J.; Shah, Seema K.; Wilfond, Benjamin S.; Pediatrics, School of Medicine
    Objective: To describe the parental experience of recruitment and assess differences between parents who participated and those who declined to enroll in a neonatal clinical trial. Study design: This was a survey conducted at 12 US neonatal intensive care units of parents of infants who enrolled in the High-dose Erythropoietin for Asphyxia and encephaLopathy (HEAL) trial or who were eligible but declined enrollment. Questions assessed 6 factors of the parental experience of recruitment: (1) interactions with research staff; (2) the consent experience; (3) perceptions of the study; (4) decisional conflict; (5) reasons for/against participation; and (6) timing of making the enrollment decision. Results: In total, 269 of 387 eligible parents, including 183 of 242 (75.6%) of those who enrolled their children in HEAL and 86 of 145 (59.3%) parents who declined to enroll their children in HEAL, were included in analysis. Parents who declined to enroll more preferred to be approached by clinical team members rather than by research team members (72.9% vs 49.2%, P = .005). Enrolled parents more frequently reported positive initial impressions (54.9% vs 10.5%, P < .001). Many parents in both groups made their decision early in the recruitment process. Considerations of reasons for/against participation differed by enrollment status. Conclusions: Understanding how parents experience recruitment, and how this differs by enrollment status, may help researchers improve recruitment processes for families and increase enrollment. The parental experience of recruitment varied by enrollment status. These findings can guide future work aiming to inform optimal recruitment strategies for neonatal clinical trials.
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    Parental Factors Associated With the Decision to Participate in a Neonatal Clinical Trial
    (JAMA, 2021-01-04) Weiss, Elliott Mark; Olszewski, Aleksandra E.; Guttmann, Katherine F.; Magnus, Brooke E.; Li, Sijia; Shah, Anita R.; Juul, Sandra E.; Wu, Yvonne W.; Ahmad, Kaashif A.; Bendel-Stenzel, Ellen; Isaza, Natalia A.; Lampland, Andrea L.; Mathur, Amit M.; Rao, Rakesh; Riley, David; Russell, David G.; Salih, Zeynep N.I.; Torr, Carrie B.; Weitkamp, Joern-Hendrik; Anani, Uchenna E.; Chang, Taeun; Dudley, Juanita; Flibotte, John; Havrilla, Erin M.; Kathen, Charmaine M.; O'Kane, Alexandra C.; Perez, Krystle; Stanley, Brenda J.; Wilfond, Benjamin S.; Shah, Seema K.; Pediatrics, School of Medicine
    Importance: It remains poorly understood how parents decide whether to enroll a child in a neonatal clinical trial. This is particularly true for parents from racial or ethnic minority populations. Understanding factors associated with enrollment decisions may improve recruitment processes for families, increase enrollment rates, and decrease disparities in research participation. Objective: To assess differences in parental factors between parents who enrolled their infant and those who declined enrollment for a neonatal randomized clinical trial. Design, setting, and participants: This survey study conducted from July 2017 to October 2019 in 12 US level 3 and 4 neonatal intensive care units included parents of infants who enrolled in the High-dose Erythropoietin for Asphyxia and Encephalopathy (HEAL) trial or who were eligible but declined enrollment. Data were analyzed October 2019 through July 2020. Exposure: Parental choice of enrollment in neonatal clinical trial. Main outcomes and measures: Percentages and odds ratios (ORs) of parent participation as categorized by demographic characteristics, self-assessment of child's medical condition, study comprehension, and trust in medical researchers. Survey questions were based on the hypothesis that parents who enrolled their infant in HEAL differ from those who declined enrollment across 4 categories: (1) infant characteristics and parental demographic characteristics, (2) perception of infant's illness, (3) study comprehension, and (4) trust in clinicians and researchers. Results: Of a total 387 eligible parents, 269 (69.5%) completed the survey and were included in analysis. This included 183 of 242 (75.6%) of HEAL-enrolled and 86 of 145 (59.3%) of HEAL-declined parents. Parents who enrolled their infant had lower rates of Medicaid participation (74 [41.1%] vs 47 [55.3%]; P = .04) and higher rates of annual income greater than $55 000 (94 [52.8%] vs 30 [37.5%]; P = .03) compared with those who declined. Black parents had lower enrollment rates compared with White parents (OR, 0.35; 95% CI, 0.17-0.73). Parents who reported their infant's medical condition as more serious had higher enrollment rates (OR, 5.7; 95% CI, 2.0-16.3). Parents who enrolled their infant reported higher trust in medical researchers compared with parents who declined (mean [SD] difference, 5.3 [0.3-10.3]). There was no association between study comprehension and enrollment. Conclusions and relevance: In this study, the following factors were associated with neonatal clinical trial enrollment: demographic characteristics (ie, race/ethnicity, Medicaid status, and reported income), perception of illness, and trust in medical researchers. Future work to confirm these findings and explore the reasons behind them may lead to strategies for better engaging underrepresented groups in neonatal clinical research to reduce enrollment disparities.