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Patient diversity

Labcorp is a leader of innovative and comprehensive laboratory services with a mission to improve health and improve lives. Labcorp's vision for patient diversity is to increase patient access and drive equitable outcomes enabling health equity for underserved populations. Following the US FDA Diversity Action Plan for clinical studies optimizes impact by enabling connections with various populations. Powered by Labcorp’s enterprise real world data, hybrid and decentralized trials solutions and collaboration with industry partners we have a broad reach that increases patient access.
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Disparities and barriers

Access to therapies, precision medicine testing and clinical trials as a care option remain elusive for underrepresented patients.

People who do not have reliable access to healthcare are also more likely to have a higher burden of disease due to historical and systemic barriers faced by the community.

A few disparities are noted below:

  • Black women have 8% lower incidence of cancer but 12% higher mortality than White women¹

  • Black men have 6% higher cancer incidence than White men but 19% higher cancer mortality¹

  • There is a higher burden of chronic kidney disease in Black populations and progression to end-stage renal disease in Native American and Hispanic populations2

  • Cancer is the leading cause of death in the U.S. Hispanic population. Hispanic adults are also less likely than non-Hispanic White people to have health insurance3

  • Hispanic men and women in the U.S. and Hawaii have lower rates of breast, colorectal, lung and prostate cancer, but higher rates of infection-related cancers (stomach, liver, cervical) and gallbladder cancer3

  • In the U.S., diabetes is more prevalent in Black, Hispanic and Asian adults when compared to White adults, with a 2011-2016 study finding diabetes prevalence was 12.1% in non-Hispanic White, 20.4% in non-Hispanic Black, 22.1% in Hispanic and 19.1% in Asian adults4

Our focus

Labcorp's vision for patient diversity is to increase patient access and drive equitable outcomes enabling health equity for underserved populations

Our mission to improve
health and lives

Learn more about how Labcorp’s mission to improve health and improve lives drives our corporate responsibility efforts across the company. This means consciously and actively engaging underserved communities, focusing on improving health outcomes.

Provider placing hand on patient's shoulder

Let's start a conversation

We invite you to explore how our team is making an impact by educating communities, engaging with health care institutions and patient advocacy groups. We're building partnerships to find innovative solutions to meet your needs.

Labcorp patient diversity collaborations
 

Tigerlily Foundation Logo with tagline: Beauty. Strength. Transformation

Labcorp has joined with the Tigerlily Foundation, a leading breast cancer patient advocacy organization, to increase clinical trial diversity for women of color and co-create health equity solutions. As part of this collaboration, Labcorp signed Tigerlily’s Inclusion Pledge, joining other healthcare and life sciences companies in committing to eradicate barriers for women of color in accessing cancer care and research.

Tigerlily and Labcorp jointly hosted Patient Listening and Clinical Site Listening Summits to discuss health equity and diversity in cancer clinical trials. Attendees included notable and successful diverse site leaders, investigators from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), National Cancer Institute (NCI) Cancer Centers, diversity and inclusion leaders and patients who identify as Black or persons of color to formulate solutions and practices that deliberately put the patient first. Following the listening summits, I AM INCLUDED was developed as a transformational, actionable framework to provide proven and successful actions and serve as a guide for clinical trial site leaders to diversify enrollment in clinical research.

Tigerlily and Labcorp launched I AM INCLUDED, a co- developed, modernized, multi-stakeholder framework for sharing best practices of diverse U.S. clinical trial site leaders for inclusive cancer clinical trials.

Just ASK(TM) logo

Expanding training programs for clinical research staff to incorporate effective recruitment and retention strategies of diverse populations enables Labcorp's stakeholders to upskill their staff to become successful in inclusive clinical research, making them a site of choice for sponsors.

The Duke University Just ASK program helps patients be more aware and knowledgeable about research and clinical trial participation, and that researchers are well equipped with the necessary skills to communicate with diverse populations. The program provides support to research teams and clinical staff to improve minority enrollment in research.

Community engagement and site collaboration

Labcorp collaborates with industry leaders to address diversity in clinical trials. Our relationships will lead the way for representation and accessibility of clinical trials for underserved communities.

  • >120,000 diverse community members
  • 97% of community identifies as Black
  • 74% of members willing to participate in research
Acclinate Logo
  • Site partnership network with embedded research teams
  • Remote site network with investigators supporting decentralized trial models
  • MD prescreen concierge service to support clinical trial participation
Hawthorne Health Logo
  • Hero service network with 4,500 clinicians across the U.S.
  • Direct contracts with HCPs from diverse backgrounds
  • Visit delivery platform with geo-location, intelligent matching and scheduling
Circuit Clinical logo

Let’s increase clinical trial diversity together

Increasing Access

Innovative solutions to meet the needs of patients from underrepresented backgrounds

Labcorp in the news
 

Resources
 

Publication

Regulatory landscape with U.S. patient requirements and Clinical Trial Diversity expectations

Labcorp branded circles

Article

Diversity in clinical studies: Why it matters?

Mother embracing her daughter that has cancer on a couch

Article

The important of diversity in clinical studies

An asain patient is meeting with her doctor in an office

Article

Making clinical trials available

Diverse friend group of three smiling in the sun

Article

Clinical studies and you

cancer patient meeting with doctor

Reach out to our team today to learn more
 

References

  1. American Cancer Society. Cancer Facts & Figures for African Americans 2022-2024. Atlanta: American Cancer Society, 2022
  2. Norris KC, Agodoa LY. Unraveling the racial disparities associated with kidney disease. Kidney International. 2005;68(3):914-924. doi:10.1111/j.1523-1755.2005.00485.x
  3. American Cancer Society. Cancer Facts & Figures for Hispanic/Latino People 2021-2023. Atlanta: American Cancer Society, 2021
  4. Cheng YJ, Kanaya AM, Araneta MRG, et al. Prevalence of diabetes by race and ethnicity in the United States, 2011-2016. JAMA. 2019;322(24):2389-2398. doi:10.1001/jama.2019.19365