BACKGROUND
Recruiting African Americans (AAs) and other marginalized communities into genomic-related health research is challenging and widespread, ranging from studies involving DNA sequencing to gene-drug interactions. George, Duran, & Norris (2014) attribute the primary reason for this is due to mistrust in researchers. Other studies demonstrate that AAs may be more difficult to recruit based on mistrust of the health care system, misuse of genomic data, privacy and confidentiality concerns, and awareness of unethical research practices in human experimentation, like the 1932 Tuskegee Syphilis Study (Otado et al., 2015; Sankaré et al., 2015; Spence & Oltmanns, 2011). Other factors, such as socioeconomic status and the type of intervention being studied have been reported and historically, have been shown to disproportionately affect AA participation in research compared to other communities. Participation barriers influence health disparities which may lead to missed economic opportunities and health promotion, inequalities, premature death, and reduced quality of life.