Did you know that the United States leads the world in clinical trials research? According to the World health Organization, 82% of all clinical trials worldwide since 1999 have taken place in the U.S. The problem is that clinical trials have lacked diverse representation for decades. The U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) reported lowest rates of clinical trial participation among Black, Hispanic or Latino, and American Indian or Alaska Native participants. Diversity in participant age, race, ethnicity, sex, and gender is important to represent the U.S. population in trials so that innovations can be impactful for everyone.
Clinical trials play a huge role in medication and treatment discovery and there are many reasons to join them, but here are a few you should consider:
#1- Access to medication or treatment that is not widely available.
Clinical research exists for many different types of diseases and disorders. By participating in clinical trials, you can potentially have access to medications, treatments, and procedures that have not been made available to the public. These treatments may offer better health outcomes or a more preferred treatment process.
Clinical trials are common for cancer, especially solid tumor cancers such as lung cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer, and colorectal cancer, among others. Immunotherapy clinical trials are an example of research that is revolutionizing cancer care. For example, Immunotherapy clinical trials at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center have shown immunotherapy as an effective treatment for various gastrointestinal cancers, that also preserves quality of life more than other treatments.
#2- Helping researchers learn how future patients can have better outcomes.
Even if you may not personally benefit from a clinical trial, your participation helps researchers learn about your specific condition and make advancements that will help patients in the future.
Clinical trials are often treatment trials, which test new drugs, technologies, and therapies for certain diseases. These trials typically have an experimental group who is given the new treatment and a control group who is not given the treatment. Even if you do not receive the treatment, you are still contributing to research that will better serve people in a similar position in the years to come.
#3- Having an extra layer of care and monitoring.
By participating in clinical research, you will have a team of healthcare professionals that are monitoring you closely, in addition to your regular care team. Involvement in clinical trials may require extra tests, scans, or monitoring, but you’ll have an extra team of professionals looking out for you during your treatment, who will be there to answer any questions or concerns you may have which can be reassuring for some patients.
If you would like to learn more about specific clinical trials, the National Library of Medicine has a search tool that you can use to search for by condition, treatment, or location. If interested, ask your healthcare provider about clinical trials near you and how to get involved.
Resources
World Health Organization. (2025). Number of trial registrations by year, location, disease and phase of development. https://www.who.int/observatories/global-observatory-on-health-research-and-development/monitoring/number-of-trial-registrations-by-year-location-disease-and-phase-of-development
U.S. Food and Drug Administration. (2024). Drug trials snapshots. https://www.fda.gov/drugs/drug-approvals-and-databases/drug-trials-snapshots
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. (2025, April 27). Using only immunotherapy successfully treats several cancers with MMRd mutation, improves quality of life. https://www.mskcc.org/news/using-only-immunotherapy-successfully-treats-several-cancers-with-mmrd-mutation-improves-quality-of-life
U.S. National Library of Medicine. (n.d.). ClinicalTrials.gov. https://clinicaltrials.gov/