Abstract IA02: Ensuring diversity in precision medicine initiatives: Where are we now and what are we doing?
Authors: Martinez Elena 
Published: August 2020

Precision medicine uses information about a person's genes, proteins, and environment to prevent, diagnose, and treat disease. The Precision Medicine Initiative (PMI) was launched by President Obama, with the goal of accelerating cancer discoveries. Although this initiative promises to result in substantial scientific advances, questions remain as to how members from diverse communities in the United States will become involved and benefit from discoveries resulting from the PMI. Participation of racial/ethnic, low-income, and rural populations in biospecimen and data sharing is vital to the success of the PMI. As part of the PMI, in his final State of the Union address, President Obama asked Vice President Biden to lead a new national effort to end cancer as we know it, now called the Beau Biden Cancer Moonshot Initiative. Recommendations from the Cancer Moonshot's Blue Ribbon Panel (BRP) attempt to ensure that traditionally under-represented populations benefit from the substantial discoveries that will be made through this landmark initiative. In doing so, the BRP identified cancer disparities as a cross-cutting and important theme, highlighting that disparities go beyond race and ethnicity to include individuals from urban and rural areas who are poor and medically underserved. It is imperative that all precision medicine efforts, including the exciting All of Us Research Program, ensure representation of underserved communities. The continued demographic shift in the United States population is projected to result in a majority-minority distribution by 2043. However, to date, there is marked under-representation of racial/ethnic minority groups in clinical trials and biospecimen banks. To address this inequity, an understanding of how to best include and engage individuals from traditionally under-represented groups will be required. Partnerships between academic institutions and safety-net health care settings offer an important strategy for enhancing participation of diverse racial/ethnic groups and underserved individuals. These partnerships will ensure that medically underserved and rural populations benefit from the exciting discoveries that are yet to come from precision medicine and help prevent false discoveries that result from sampling from a homogeneous population. In this session, the All of Us Program's goals, recruitment status, and initiatives to build trust and engage with community partners to ensure diverse representation will be presented. A presentation from a federally qualified health center will provide insights on important contributions that are possible by engaging with safety-net clinic settings to ensure representation of medically underserved communities. The advocate's perspective will address building community trust and provide a blueprint for engaging communities in precision medicine efforts.

Citation Format: Elena Martinez. Ensuring diversity in precision medicine initiatives: Where are we now and what are we doing? [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Eleventh AACR Conference on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved; 2018 Nov 2-5; New Orleans, LA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2020;29(6 Suppl):Abstract nr IA02.