African American Nurses' Perspectives on Genomic Medicine Research.

Abstract

There is a lack of African American (AA) community engagement in genomic medicine research. Recent popular interest in the experience of AAs, such as that of Henrietta Lacks, has perhaps prompted interest in research on how AA nurses can provide strategies to better engage AA communities in genomic medicine research. The authors conducted one-on-one semi-structured interviews with 11 National Black Nurses Association (NBNA) chapter leaders from 8 different US states, representing 782 NBNA members. Our results quantified NBNA chapter leader agreement on known themes from the literature, captured newly emerging themes, and produced a set of actionable strategies to help overcome barriers to AA engagement in genomic medicine research that fall under 6 themes: (1) engagement, support, information dissemination, and implementation recommendations in general and to address health disparities; (2) addressing language barriers; (3) addressing research implementation barriers; (4) getting physicians to participate; (5) overcoming privacy concerns; and (6) nursing education recommendations. Actionable strategies presented herein can help researchers better engage AA communities in genomic medicine research.