Willyanne DeCormier Plosky, DrPH
Acting Program Director at the Multi-Regional Clinical Trials Center of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard
Abstract: Approximately 25 percent of adults in the US have one or more cognitive, visual, hearing, mobility, developmental, or intellectual impairments. In addition, many people will develop a disability at some point in their life, may be caring for a loved one with a disability, or both. But the exclusion of people with disabilities from clinical trials persists, despite protections under the Americans with Disabilities Act Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, the Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Human Research Protections (SACHRP), and other federal and state guidance. In the October 2022 special issue of Health Affairs on disability and health, Willyanne DeCormier Plosky and colleagues reported that protocol eligibility criteria frequently excluded people with disabilities. Few studies included either justifications for these exclusions or descriptions of accommodations that were offered, provided, or permitted. Dr. DeCormier Plosky will discuss these findings in this ethics grand rounds.
Sponsored by the University of Minnesota Center for Bioethics