About the Community Access, Recruitment & Engagement (CARE) Research Center
Our Mission
The Community, Access, Recruitment, and Engagement (CARE) Research Center at Massachusetts General Hospital aims to ensure that advances in medicine work for everyone. CARE is focused on creating a clear, testable science of research engagement, recruitment, and retention. This framework is based upon community-led partnerships as the foundation for health equity. We are committed to ensuring that these principles and practices are rooted in diverse and inclusive research design.
About CARE
The Community Access, Recruitment & Engagement (CARE) Research Center at Massachusetts General Hospital was founded by Jonathan Jackson, PhD, in 2017 with the aim to improve representation in clinical trials at the hospital. We focus on disparities for underrepresented groups in clinical trials, including racial and ethnic minorities, LGBTQ+ groups, rural populations, individuals of low socioeconomic status, and identities that intersect with these areas.
In bringing clinical research into the community in a way that engages and enables the community to co-lead and contribute to these research endeavors, CARE sets the stage for a paradigm shift in the language, practice and design of clinical trials. Such changes will have a multiplier effect, forging a new landscape for clinical trial participation in Boston and beyond which will ultimately improve the validity of life-saving research related to a range of diseases and disorders.
CARE has three intersecting areas of interest:
- A quantified, testable science of engagement, recruitment, and retention to research studies
- Strong, sustained, reciprocal community engagement and partnership
- A robust network of researchers, clinicians and community voices to ensure that cutting-edge medicines can effectively reach those who need it most
Through research on clinical trials as well as broad and sustained community engagement, we hope to reengineer the process behind clinical trial engagement, recruitment, and retention to support the inclusion of diverse and marginalized groups. CARE works to achieve this aim by:
- Leveraging a community-led collective impact model to develop and engage in sustained local partnerships in underserved areas of Boston
- Improving health, medical, research and insurance literacies
- Focusing on research engagement within vulnerable communities, ensuring that studies provide a strong return of value for underserved groups
- Streamlining the clinical trial recruitment process at Massachusetts General Hospital through staff training and consultancy
- Facilitating collaboration across the United States via robust clinical and research networks to improve inclusive access to its clinical trials
Our Community Engagement Work
We aim to improve research representation in clinical trials by listening to the needs of the communities that medicine and research intend to serve.