When it comes to cancer care and disease research, could a community-focused population health approach be more beneficial than a one-size-fits-all research model?

That’s the contention of a thought-provoking, peer-reviewed study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

Prostate cancer is one of the deadliest cancers affecting African-American men, yet they are woefully underrepresented in research studies, according to Rogers, et al.

Although black Americans are twice as likely as white Americans to die of prostate cancer, recruitment of African-American men into prostate cancer research studies “remains a challenge despite efforts to partner with black faith-based groups to increase minority participation,” wrote the paper’s authors.

The study identified several factors that may keep black American men from participating more fully in cancer research studies, although the most significant may be a lack of trust in the healthcare system, reported NPR’s Rachel D. Cohen.

“The distrust results from ways African-Americans have been historically treated by the medical system,” she wrote.

“Past clinical research abuses include the Tuskegee syphilis study in which black men with syphilis were unaware that they were intentionally not being treated during the 40-year span of the study, even when penicillin became an accepted treatment for syphilis,” Cohen noted.

“Some of the focus group participants brought up the Tuskegee syphilis study as a reason for distrusting clinical studies,” she reported. This, “adds to previous research finding[s] that the Tuskegee incident has led to a general distrust of clinical research and healthcare systems among African-Americans.”

Learn more here, from NPR.