From awareness to advancement
Editor's note: Danielle Mitchell is CEO and founder of Black Women in Clinical Research. She can be reached at dcoe@bwicr.com. Portia Gordon is associate director at Branding Science. She can be reached at portia.gordon@branding-science.com. Tatiana Barakshina is managing partner at Bazis Americas. She can be reached at tvb@bazisgroup.com. Tom Donnelly is vice president MedTech at the Research Partnership. He can be reached at tom.donnelly@researchpartnership.com.
In 2023, over 130,000 clinical trials were registered in the U.S. and the market size was $27.8 billion, with a projected growth rate from 2021-2028 of 5-7%.1 Some of the factors driving this trend include: increased research and developmental spending in the pharmaceutical industry; the need for more agents; increasing prevalence of disease; and a focus on rare disease and multiple orphan drugs in the pipeline.
While there is growing demand for work and professionals in clinical research (over 127,000 professionals were employed in clinical research in 2023), there is also a vast underrepresentation of minorities, with single-digit percentages of African American (6-8%) and Hispanic (7-9%)2 workers in the field, numbers that do not parallel their representation in the population (13.4% and 18.9%, respectively.3
Given this disparity, special considerations are needed to help minorities get into and advance in the field. One industry group working on making a difference is Black Women in Clinical Research (BWICR), started in 2019 by Danielle Mitchell. Its mission is to educate, empower and support Black women in the clinical research industry.
BWICR asked Intellus Worldwide, a nonprofit organization that provides a community for health care insights and analytic professionals,4 to conduct a research study to understand the experiences of Black women throughout their clinical research journey, including unmet needs.
The research objectives were to:
- understand how Black women in clinical research learn of the field and their rationales for selecting the profession;
- understand challenges and barriers encountered during training, hiring/employment and other notable milestones/experiences throughout their clinical research journey; and
- identify unmet needs and provide solutions to help address these needs, including suggestions to help them grow in the field.
Intellus partnered with Seton Hall University’s Market Research Center5 to help execute the research in 2023. A two-phase research project was conducted with members of BWICR in the U.S., all women of color working in the clinical research field. First, 15 tele-depth interviews were done to inform a quantitative study. Next, a 20-minute online survey was conducted with 42 BWICR members, with professional experience ranging from beginner to 25 years in the field. The interviews covered a range of topics including awareness of clinical research opportunities, conferences attended, mentors, career satisfaction and assessment of BWICR services.
Results
The findings are organized into two streams. First, we review how Black women get into the field of clinical research. Second, we cover aspects of advancing in the field.
Getting into the field
Awareness is the first step in a funnel that leads to a career in clinical research. We asked professionals in the field when they first learned about career opportunities in clinical research and found that 50% of respondents learned while already in the workforce. The remaining 50% had some exposure, having awareness in college (28%) or in graduate school (19%). Two-thirds of respondents had past working experience before they joined clinical research in areas/roles such as: public health, psychology, nursing, pharmacy technical, lab manager or technician. Exposure to clinical research as a career came when looking for information on career websites (28%); some heard about clinical research from friends and family (23%) or from college resources (21%). Thus, there is an opportunity to raise awareness through formal education and career websites, helping people learn about this career earlier as they plan their futures and gain necessary skills. When considering the influence of money in entering the field, 64% of respondents reported that they received a pay increase as they were switching from another field to clinical research field, while 24% mentioned taking a pay cut in order to get into the field.
Internships are critical to help get into the field by gaining early experience, as well as an overall understanding of it. Just over half of respondents felt that internships had a high impact on getting into their clinical research career. As with many industries, it is difficult to enter the field if you do not have relevant experience. Just over a third of respondents would have taken an unpaid internship, while 43% would only have done a paid internship in order to progress into the field (Figure 1).
Advancing in the field
Mentorship creates a space to share ideas, learn from others, avoid mistakes and clarify next steps, while also helping to solidify goals. A mentor can help accelerate career growth by offering expert guidance and field navigation tips. When Black women are mentors for other Black women in the field, it expands the pool of future leaders and mentors, compounding expansion in the industry.
In this research, 43% of respondents had a mentor in the industry (Figure 2). Mentors were from a wide array of clinical research areas, including researchers, senior leadership, project management, specialized roles, operational management and educational leaders. This shows that a mentor does not need to be from a narrow area within your field. Mentorship length varies, as shown with respondents reporting their experience lasted an average of five years, ranging from one to 12. In our sample, 70% said having a mentor was extremely beneficial to their career.
Networking provides a support system that helps with finding new positions, pay negotiations and getting a holistic perspective of the field. LinkedIn was the most-used platform (78%) by the BWICR community (Figure 3); the free BWICR Facebook community was second (55%); and the paid BWICR app was third (30%).
The app was highly rated (average of 2.72 out of 3) and was used by 50% of the sample. The main benefits users reported are networking (50%) and identifying with their peers (29%). The ability to identify with someone like you – similar experience, values and aspirations – was viewed as a career accelerant. Such a match can help the mentee and mentor to be more honest and open about issues. Also, it provides a space for unique challenges related to being an underrepresented minority.
Driving more widespread awareness
Clinical research is not widely recognized as a career option in high school and college education. Increasing awareness in these settings would help in attracting Black women to the field as well as driving more widespread awareness in general. Internships are important because many entrants into the field are coming from other medical professions and lack specific experience in clinical research. Thus, increased availability of internships would be a strong boost for expanding the number of Black women in this field. Mentorship connections are highly valued by Black women in clinical research and networking was ranked as the most valuable benefit to help them grow in the field. Providing a community that supports these, such as BWICR, will help Black women advance in clinical research careers.
Statistics are important, but personal stories are powerful. Two of the authors will briefly share theirs. When Portia graduated from Smith College, she wanted to go into biomedical research. She did not want to go into medicine but wanted to have a very strong medical background. She was accepted into the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and entered its Sue Golding graduate division. Portia was the first woman of color to attain a doctorate in molecular pharmacology and biochemistry. She spent a lot of hours working at Albert Einstein but did not have a mentor who looked like her. She looked forward to going to conferences, such as the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, which is a scientific society that advances health and wellbeing by promoting research and education in the biological and biomedical sciences. There, Portia collaborated and interacted with other students of color. They discussed papers they worked on together and it was a very rewarding experience.
While she did not have a mentor, someone senior to her in the field, Portia was able to participate with colleagues on her level. Given that experience, once she had her own lab, she would invite graduate students and high school students of color to work with her during the summer. She felt this was an invaluable experience for the student because it gave them an opportunity to see if they wanted to pursue a career in clinical research. In addition, Portia gave presentations to elementary, high school and college students about her experience in working in clinical research, thereby increasing awareness of the field to those who are underrepresented in the field.
Danielle began in clinical research starting as a coordinator at Karmanos Cancer Institute. She had a mentor as an undergraduate attending Clark Atlanta University who helped her navigate research, building confidence and overcoming challenges. This mentorship experience showed her the value in shaping careers and empowering others to reach their full potential. Danielle realized it was important to have a mentor who believes in you and can advocate for you, because often individuals are unaware of their capability. A mentor is a cheerleader in your corner, telling you that you can do it. She recalls attending an investigator meeting in a room of hundreds of people where there was only one other Black woman. She wondered if the lack of diversity was just in that room or if it was an industrywide issue. With this experience, Danielle wanted to provide a forum for other Black women to have the same empowerment through mentoring and networking.
Parallels with health care research
There are parallels in the career paths for clinical researchers and health care marketing researchers. For example, people are generally unaware of both industry segments. And, as with clinical research, typically there are no formal academic paths for young professionals who are interested health care marketing research. Instead, people often fall into it, as they do with clinical research.
With a $31.7 billion market size and a projected growth of 4-6%,6 the marketing research industry employs over 140,000 professionals. As with clinical research, there is also a severe underrepresentation of Blacks (6-7%) and Hispanics (8-10%) in the industry.7
Getting into health care marketing research typically requires some experience. While time spent in consumer marketing research may be a stepping stone, without some health care background it is not enough to land that first job. Thus, internships in health care marketing research are crucial in providing an avenue to help newcomers get quickly up to speed, gain some experience and provide context about the field. And, as with the clinical research field, getting ahead in health care marketing research can be accelerated by engagement in a network, as well as having a mentor.
To that end, Intellus Worldwide has a resource center that includes member contact information, new job postings, recordings of past presentations, committees working on specific areas in the field (e.g., health literacy) and a mentorship program. In the past two years, Intellus has matched 17 mentors/mentees and has kicked off the next wave of matching for 2025. Intellus invites undergraduate and graduate students to attend the conferences with grants, which provides a path to the health care insights community.
As with clinical research, there are additional challenges for minorities in health care marketing research. Junior researchers rarely see themselves mirrored in senior positions. Finding a mentor that closely resembles your background can be crucial for navigating unique hurdles.
The clinical research and health care marketing research communities should find ways to provide more internship opportunities, more networking channels and more mentorship programs – all with consideration for underrepresented minorities.