Previous publications provide all the details on the development, methodological approach, and respondent demographics, as well as research findings, for this 3-City TLP Study which, as a major project within an NIDCR/NIH funded Oral Health Disparities Research Center, was the second TLP Study conducted ( 10- 12). The 60-item TLP Questionnaire used in that study probed a number of topics related to an individual's willingness to participate in biomedical research, and the factors that might influence that willingness within the same research protocol in all three cities. This report uses data from the 3-City Tuskegee Legacy Project (TLP) study, which administered the Tuskegee Legacy Project (TLP) Questionnaire via random-digit-dial Computer Assisted Telephone Interviews (CATI) to Blacks, non-Hispanic Whites, and Puerto Rican Hispanics aged 18 years and older in 3 cities (New York City, New York Baltimore, Maryland and San Juan, Puerto Rico) ( 10- 12). The primary aim of this analysis is to present, for the first time, findings on the vox populis as to who constitutes the ‘vulnerables in biomedical research’ as defined by a random sample of adults in three U.S. governmental branches, such as NIH and the National Library of Medicine, have formally weighed in with who constitutes the ‘vulnerables’ in biomedical research, and researchers have informally made (if not formally announced) their choices, the literature is silent as to the vox populis on this major societal issue in our democratic society. However, not one of those 3,605 citations identified a published article that sought and reported on the ‘voice of the people’ (i.e., voice of the common man or the vox populis) as to whom they considered to be the ‘vulnerables in biomedical research’. In fact, there is among those 3,605 articles only a very limited literature which directly focused on defining who constituted the ‘vulnerables’ in which authors present concepts or definitions of ‘vulnerables’ based on either ‘a researcher's perspective’ or ‘a public health practitioner's perspective’ ( 4- 9). Informally, one could construct the collective, albeit indirect ‘voice’ of the researchers themselves on defining ‘vulnerables in research’ by making a comprehensive list of ‘populations studied’ in the 3,605 articles identified via a PubMed search guided by the term ‘vulnerable populations’ ( 3). Another formal definition of ‘vulnerable populations’ has been offered by the National Library of Medicine in their Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) database ( 2). national standards, for who constitutes the ‘vulnerable populations’ in biomedical research in its Code of Federal Guidelines for the Protection of Human Subjects document ( 1). The Department of Health and Human Services (HSS), through its Office of Human Research Protection (OHRP), has formally defined, and thereby set U.S. Whatever the label-of-the-day in this chain of evolving era-specific terminology, this honorable and much needed line of health research has focused on studying health issues in ‘the vulnerables’ in society. eras of studies of the poor were followed by decades of study of disadvantaged minorities, with this line of research today under the umbrella term of ‘health disparities’. Public health research, by definition, is focused largely on the health needs and health access issues of the needy and the underserved in society.
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