The Importance of Medicaid Data To Improve Diversity in Clinical Trials

Paralleling many conversations across the current socio-political landscape, life sciences have been striving to fix the lack of diversity in clinical trials. This has taken a few different angles ranging from access to representative results.

While these conversations have been ongoing, two recent updates prompted more urgent action: Medicaid became responsible for the costs of clinical trials for Medicaid patients,¹ and the FDA issued guidance requiring clinical trial diversity plans.²

Using real world evidence in the design of a clinical trial allows life science organizations to ensure they meet diversity requirements in advance of beginning the trial, thus reducing the need for subsequent iterations and using resources most efficiently.

Often, conversations around diverse real world evidence data focus on social determinants of health (SDoH), which are critical data points. However, it is also important to start with a diverse data set. Many CareJourney members utilize the 100% CMS Medicaid data set for this reason.