$25 Nearly Doubled Black and Hispanic Clinical Trial Enrollment

“The people most harmed by heart disease are poorly represented in research for promising new treatments. But small financial incentives could help change that, according to LDI Fellows and CHIBE-Affiliated Faculty Alexander C. Fanaroff, Kevin Volpp, Scott Halpern, Alisa Stephens-Shields, and collaborators.

The team from Penn’s BETTER Center, focused on behavioral economics, tested ways to increase enrollment of Black and Hispanic patients in clinical trials with the ITERATE study, funded by the American Heart Association.

Small financial incentives proved to be the most effective of four strategies tested to make research more representative. Providing a $25 incentive nearly doubled participation among underrepresented groups.

These findings matter because clinical trials identify new treatments and should be tested in people who will use them in the real-world.”

Read more at Penn LDI.

The completed study, “Messaging Informed by Behavioral Economics and Representativeness in Clinical Research Enrollment: Four Randomized Clinical Trials,” was published July 16, 2026 in JAMA Network Open by Alexander C Fanaroff, Nirali Patel, Casey Whitman, Adina Lieberman, Shira Blady, Colleen Morse Kripke, Nawar Naseer, Joellen Weaver, Modele Ogunniyi, Rachel Kohn, Alanna A Morris, Alisa Stephens-Shields, Kevin G Volpp, and Scott D Halpern.