The Roles of Trust and Respect in Patient Reactions to Race-based and Personalized Medicine Vignettes: An Experimental Study

Study Summary

Background: * Genetic research has implications for drug development and marketing. Race-based medicine may be able to provide specific treatment for populations with increased disease-specific morbidity and mortality. However, contemporary genetic research refutes the idea that races are genetically distinct populations, even as drugs designed for use in specific races are being promoted. * Studies have shown high levels of public suspicion for race-based and personalized genetic medicine. Concerns related to not only the potential performance of race-based drugs, but also the motives of those offering these drugs. Many participants have suggested conspiracy theories in which race-based medicine was disguising an attempt to provide inferior medications or deliberately harm certain populations. Concerns about personalized medicine often have to do with privacy and other personal concerns. * Public suspicions of race-based medicine, and to a lesser extent, personalized genetic medicine, make it important to examine and understand the theoretical and empirical literature on trust and health care. Objective: \- To describe the perspective of participants evaluating the medicine offer. Eligibility: * Males and females ages 18 and older who are visiting the John Hopkins clinics (primarily the adult care clinics). * Participants must be able to take a literacy screen and respond to a short survey. Design: * Participants will be asked to take a researcher-administrated literacy screen, read one of three randomly assigned vignettes, and fill out a survey. The first page of the survey will provide information about the study. * Participants will respond to initial questions about demographics, experiences with discrimination, and trust in the medical profession and institutions. * Each participant will receive a random vignette in which he/she will imagine him/herself being diagnosed with a common, chronic condition and offered a conventional drug, a race-based drug,