The Association of Clinical Research Professionals
COVID-19 and the Clinical Research Profession
This new white paper, published in April 2022, spotlights the impact of COVID-19 on clinical research professionals at both an organizational and human level, examining their challenges, their insights, their successes, and the personal price many had to pay in the interest of their vocation.
“The clinical research community has worked together to achieve great things in response to the pandemic, including developing at least three effective vaccines in record time,” says Susan P. Landis, executive director of ACRP. “This commitment to excellence in clinical research and dedication to improving health outcomes is inspiring and will be celebrated at the ACRP 2022 annual conference.”
The clinical research industry overcame extraordinary challenges by uniting with a common purpose, notes the position paper. This unity must be maintained for the future and build on learnings from the pandemic.
Areas spotlighted include the need for:
- Clearer career paths, standards, and infrastructures, helping to stem burnout within clinical research and optimize the many rewards of this worthwhile and exciting profession.
- More diversity among clinical trial participants, with clinical researchers reaching out to underserved ethnic and other subpopulations. Success here will depend on achieving greater diversity within the clinical research workforce itself.
- More patient-centricity and accessibility, with clinical trials better representing and protecting the entire population. Decentralized clinical trials are a major step toward this goal.
- Greater collaboration, including between individual research teams with common goals, and with central oversight and sharing of best practices being encouraged and facilitated.
Decentralized Clinical Trials: Perspectives for Clinical Research Professionals