Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #116315

Gloria C. Ramsey, RN, JD, Division of Nursing, New York University, 246 Greene Street, New York, NY 10003, 212-998-5356, gloria.ramsey@nyu.edu

The challenge for American health care providers today is that there is an established history of distrust between providers and African American patients. African Americans know of this country's legacy of illegal experimentation, specifically, the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. Trust requires an investment of time, resources and a genuine interest and motivation to improve the health and well being of the population. African Americans turn to the church as a place they can trust and to obtain health information and education.

The purpose of this pilot project is to identify and describe attitudes of African Americans towards participation in past, present and future biomedical research; and to determine whether President Clinton's apology in 1997 on behalf of government influence decision-making. The author will present data from a qualitative study in which individuals of mixed gender participated in four focus groups: older (60 and older) and younger (21-40). Individuals were sampled from a large metropolitan religious institution and affiliated community health center, both located in the State of New York (n=32); and from religious institutions and friends of the Tuskegee Human and Civil Rights Multicultural Center, located in the State of Alabama (n=31). The groups were homogenous in terms of age, class, and race for each area. The findings document the substantial and ongoing impact of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study among African Americans, both old and young, and underscore the importance of continued acknowledgment and education about the study.

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