Addressing ethnic disparities in drug abuse treatment in the Clinical Trials Network.

Ethnic minorities have significantly higher rates of unmet needs for treatment of substance use disorders and are often underrepresented in clinical trials and treatment research. The National Drug Abuse Treatment Clinical Trials Network (CTN) was established in 1999 to conduct research in a wide variety of community based treatment programs across the United States. Through its size and scope, the CTN provides a unique opportunity to address a variety of underserved populations, and in particular to evaluate access to and effectiveness of treatments for ethnic minorities. The CTN has continually sought to reduce barriers to all its studies and has attended carefully to recruitment and retention of women and ethnic minority groups.

This article describes a symposium from the June 2006 CPDD annual meeting that included four presentations on ongoing CTN activities and strategies used to address the issues of ethnic disparities. Kathleen Carroll described a protocol developed specifically to address retention in treatment among Spanish-speaking substance users. Ray Daw described the special issues raised in clinical research among American Indian communities, including those encountered by a CTN protocol that was adapted on site so it could be implemented among American Indian communities. Kathryn Magruder summarized results of a secondary analysis of CTN data, evaluating rates of retention among ethnical minorities. And Lawrence Brown described a secondary analysis of a CTN survey study on national practices regarding the availability of specialized treatment for sexually transmitted diseases in drug abuse treatment, focusing specifically on services for ethnic minorities.

Related protocols: CTN-0012, CTN-0017, CTN-0020, CTN-0021