Bill Balke, MD, director of CTSI Clinical Research Services
Although the vast majority of Americans (94 percent) understand the importance of taking part in clinical research to advance medical science, according to the online resource CenterWatch, three in four adults have little to no knowledge about how clinical research works or how to participate.
Looking to bridge that information gap, UCSF’s Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) supported and coordinated AWARE for ALL Clinical Research Education Day on Nov. 5. The event, which happens in major cities across the U.S., was held in San Francisco for the first time. It attracted hundreds of attendees and brought together more than a dozen community partners who provided health-related information and free health screenings, such as glucose and blood pressure checks, chiropractic evaluations and flu shots, among other services.
“Volunteers are really the engine of clinical research, and without them there is no research,” said Bill Balke, MD, director of CTSI’s Clinical Research Services (CRS) program, which is preparing to launch the UCSF Participant Recruitment Service (PRS). The PRS, which was responsible for the event, provides services to support UCSF and affiliate researchers in recruiting study participants. Keep reading
