Fireside Chat with Alicia Pearson, Manager of Clinical Study Start Up and Strategy, and Abby Levine, Senior Director of Product & Portfolio Strategy
In an industry that thrives on innovation and progress, the art of recruiting participants for research is undergoing a significant transformation. Recognizing the pivotal role of participant involvement in the success of clinical research, Evidation has a commitment to revolutionizing how individuals engage with research. We support our customers with precision and right-fit recruitment from our engaged community of ~5 million members in the U.S. for trials and studies, health condition support and education, and market research.
We chatted with Evidation’s Alicia Pearson and Abby Levine, experts in clinical research, to explore the intricate aspects of reaching a broad range of people to participate in research, including the importance of increasing public awareness about clinical research, building a community, leading with transparency and trust, and seamless technology integration.
Get to know Alicia and Abby
At Evidation, Alicia champions the participant experience and operational excellence, further advancing her mission to ensure that clinical research is not considered the last option but the best path forward; meanwhile, Abby uses her passion for improving quality and access to healthcare to match Evidation’s partners with the right tools to drive change. Learn more about Alicia and Abby.
How has your prior experience informed your work at Evidation?
Alicia: I'm lucky enough to have experienced the full spectrum of clinical research and seen "behind the curtain" of the industry, so I can appreciate its challenges and opportunities. Something that really sticks out to me is the importance of simplifying and humanizing the clinical trial process – for our teams, so we can launch faster, and for our participants, so they can feel safe and comfortable. I've written the documents, and I know they can be both scientifically rigorous and participant-friendly. If we're going to truly shift into seeing participants as partners, we have to make the partnership equitable. Limit the in-office visits where possible, include gas cards so participants don't have to wait on the payment cycle, rely on self-report when you can, etc.
Abby: My background in anthropology specifically focused on the emergence of complex societies and the evolution of chiefly authority. This work taught me how engagement at scale is foundational to the major transitions we’ve seen throughout history. In this regard, there is a clear throughline in my work at Evidation – we are participant-first, directly connecting with individuals to help them make sense of their data and leveraging this relationship to advance participation in research and improve outcomes for all.
What are some of the barriers to recruitment and enrollment that you’ve observed or heard within the industry?
Alicia: I believe one of the primary recruitment challenges stems from a lack of awareness about clinical research. Many individuals, especially those in good health, often have little to no knowledge about research in general, let alone how it relates to them. This is especially true for generally healthy individuals who may perceive research as a last resort for severely ill patients.
I recently came across a study by WCG indicating that only 16% of cancer patients were ever presented with a trial opportunity, yet nearly 50% were willing to participate when offered. It underscores the critical importance of informing people about research, helping them understand its potential impact, and highlighting the benefits it can bring to them personally. To achieve this, we need to proactively reach out to potential participants and ensure that research opportunities are accessible and well-communicated. It also means we shouldn’t wait until the last minute (post launch) to do so.
Even before we invite members to participate in research, we put a lot of work into making sure that our platform is valuable to our members by sharing health-related educational materials, providing personalized readouts from their shared data, prioritizing transparency about how we use their data, and ultimately helping our members understand their health. This has resulted in an engaged community who has a real interest in participating in research, so much so that we’ve achieved a conversion rate of 50% when offering subsequent studies to previous research participants, which is huge when you consider that the typical click-through rate from external sources is as low as 1-2%, and you’re lucky if it’s 5-10%. I believe we were able to achieve that because we had invested in the relationships with these individuals.
Abby: I agree – educating and inspiring people to participate in research is a thread that many study teams are starting to pull. We are realizing the important role that longitudinal engagement plays in study recruitment. This is surprising in the sense that an individual’s journey to enrolling in a study may start months or even years before the study takes place.
Another challenge is meeting people where they are, and there are many leaders who are starting to realize they don’t know what they don’t know. Doing the upfront work to learn about and deeply understand the target audience is key to setting research up for success.
Scientists often forget that study participants are people and see them only as research subjects. When this happens, you get research protocols that are overly burdensome, introducing even more friction into people’s already busy lives. We want people to feel motivated and inspired to participate in research, not feel like they can’t keep up with the demands of a trial that doesn’t consider the participant experience.
How do we successfully reach people who don’t know about research already?
Abby: It’s critical to start early. While it’s not difficult to sell people on the importance of research, it’s convincing them that their contribution can make a difference in their lives and in the lives of others like them. For example, in a recent survey about clinical trials on our platform, 61% of our members would participate in the future if given the opportunity despite only 28% being familiar with clinical trials. Recognizing that there is a foundation to be laid and doing the work to make it happen are key to driving awareness and activating people to seek out and enroll in research studies.
Alicia: I absolutely agree that it takes work. For example, since Evidation conducts decentralized research, we don’t always have the advantage of people hearing about our studies from their doctors, who they already know and trust. The populations we’re usually most incentivized to connect with have a justified mistrust of the healthcare community and clinical trials specifically. Ultimately, it’s our job to build that trust by showing up in ways that are meaningful, and we can’t do it in frenzied recruitment rushes or reaching out once via email only when we need something.
How can we make enrolling in clinical research more seamless for individuals, especially when technology is involved?
Alicia: Although a lot of people like to talk about being able to scale research with technology and decentralized trials, it doesn’t matter how many millions of people you reach if 99% don’t care about what you’re offering. I believe the more technologically advanced we get, the more the non-technological methods are going to matter. And they’re going to help give a competitive advantage when everybody else is still stuck doing the same thing.
The tech divide can limit the accessibility of research that uses technology for some or all of its interactions with participants. We have to make it easier for people. At Evidation, we have a platform that people might not be used to, and research is a subject that people are not familiar with. Even something as “simple” as informed consent forms can be overwhelming and way too long. Therefore, providing other ways of understanding that information can be important: for example, a short video explaining why the study is important and the informed consent process. Short videos or tutorials can also show how to download the app, exactly what it looks like, and what to expect. And if someone learns better by reading, we provide the same information in an illustrated style. We can't trust that one size fits all.
Abby: To add to that, I think it’s beneficial to think about your study as a product and talk to your audience to learn how you can optimize your study for their best possible experience. This will help determine how you can balance the technology and non-technological methods that Alicia refers to. It helps to start thinking about ways to leverage technology and implement decentralized methods when possible to make it easier for people to participate, especially since fully decentralized models might not always be feasible. Participants can complete a survey just as easily at home as they can at a research site, and a bit more work on the technical side will pay enormous dividends in terms of participant retention and data quality.
What are your thoughts about the future of recruitment and enrollment in research?
Alicia: I'm actually really excited about the future, because, whether we want to or not, we are going to be forced to actually engage with the individuals we’re trying to recruit. Social media is too saturated, traditional recruitment vendors are using email addresses that aren't real, and we have more reason than ever to actually invest the thousands we have set aside for recruitment money into making relationships that we can rely on again. And again, I think that's the only future for decentralized trials.
Abby: Yes – trust and engagement will be key because there is more competition than ever for recruitment, and the most successful companies will be able to connect with participants better than anyone else. This is, of course, in addition to being able to find the right people, at the right time, and offer them a great experience in terms of trial onboarding.
Alicia: If your recruitment strategy hasn’t had a facelift in the past year, your organization may be behind. We’re going to keep solving little problems, and we have to constantly be willing to try things that we haven't tried before. If we’re going to ask people to engage with a platform like Evidation, we need to recognize that, for many, this will be asking them to step outside their comfort zone. To reduce that barrier, we need to meet them where they are and plan ways that will make it easier. In essence, we can’t ask them to take yet another step forward while we stay in the same place. That also means that we have to ask for and learn from participant feedback, then actually adapt what we’re doing.
I’d encourage others to get curious, to reach out and learn from the communities of interest and understand what's important to them. We need to keep moving, not only to provide our participants the best possible experience but also to make sure that our studies are successful. Everyone wins when we’re able to figure out how to make research as easy as possible, provide fair and equitable reimbursement to participants, understand that education in the community is our responsibility and goes beyond social posts, and that participants can truly be partners.
Abby: And we would be remiss not to mention how AI can keep us moving into the future. I recently read a paper about the use of large language models to match potential participants with clinical trials – a screening process that normally takes up to an hour per patient. This translates to significant conservation of resources and cost savings. At Evidation, we’ve utilized machine learning models to identify people who might be experiencing flu-like symptoms, then inviting them to participate in flu research. There’s definitely potential here, and I’m excited to see what other fit-for-purpose applications emerge.
To learn more about Evidation's work in research recruitment, click here.