6 Proven Strategies for Representative Trial Recruitment

Clinical research doesn’t always reflect the people it aims to serve. But it’s not for lack of trying: CROs, sponsors, recruitment firms, and others have all attempted to improve diversity in clinical trials. Nevertheless, communities of color remain underrepresented.  

When clinical research fails to represent everyone affected, sponsors risk skewed data, increased costs, and delays getting life-changing therapies to those who need them. Trials close and critical treatments are kept out of reach. 

Sponsors need more than good intentions or one-off tactics for overcoming enrollment disparities. They need strategies for representative trial recruitment.  

These six strategies, built around data, trust, and long-term engagement, come directly from Acclinate’s work with sponsors, CROs, and communities. 

1. Build Representation Into Site Selection 

Inclusive participant outreach plans must begin at the protocol level. You can’t fix representation by tinkering with recruitment. It’s a design issue, which makes it a site selection issue.  

Inclusive trials consider where sites are located and who’s on staff. Will a white principal investigator with an all-white team cultivate trust and confidence in communities of color? Maybe not. Research published in 2025 found that Black respondents’ interest in clinical research participation increased when shown a photograph of a Black investigator. The researchers point out that trustworthiness plays a major role in decisions to participate in clinical trials—or even to engage with the healthcare system. 

Other factors matter as well, so strategies for representative trial recruitment must address several concerns. Can participants drive to the site easily? Is it close to mass transit? Will participants need childcare? Must the site accommodate family members or caregivers? Can a site schedule visits to accommodate shift workers or others with atypical schedules? The point is to reduce non-clinical barriers that keep people from enrolling—or drive them to drop out. 

These obstacles won’t be the same for everyone, though. So how do you know which ones need to be removed for your particular study? Listen to the people you want to enroll.  

2. Partner With Trusted Community Organizations 

Real engagement comes from real relationships. A recruitment flyer won’t convince people to enroll. Neither will a Facebook or radio ad. Conversations might. And those conversations take place in the community, so inclusive participant outreach plans must outline ways to integrate organically into people's everyday environments. That means showing up in spaces where trust already exists. 

Local churches, barbershops, and community health centers aren’t just places. They are connection points. When sponsors build a steady, respectful presence in these spaces, people listen.  

Acclinate collaborates with these community partners to co-create outreach strategies that are personal, not promotional. 

Here’s one example: Acclinate built a “community circle” specifically for maternal and fetal health in its NOWINCLUDED platform, and it reached out to communities of color with relevant content, resources, and experiences for maternal and fetal health. More than 18,000 platform members engaged with this material. Over 45% of them indicated they’d be willing to participate in clinical research.  

Everyday Touchpoint: The Local Pharmacy 

Pharmacies are among the most trusted and accessible places in the healthcare system. Acclinate saw an opportunity to put this trust into action and partnered with Good Neighbor Pharmacy, a network of independent pharmacies, to explore how they can serve as activation points for community-driven clinical research and aid in the mission of overcoming enrollment disparities.  

A pilot study confirmed that pharmacies can be powerful partners in expanding clinical research participation and increasing representation. Pharmacists can be community ambassadors, helping foster trust and increase participation in research. Moreover, using pharmacies as recruitment sites can bridge the awareness-to-participation gap. 

3: Before You Recruit, Build Affective Trust  

You can’t cultivate trust overnight—and you definitely can’t build it the day you need someone to sign up. That’s why collaborating with communities is one of the most powerful strategies for representative trial recruitment. 

Acclinate’s approach works because of something called affective trust, which relies on emotional connection and cultural empathy. Acclinate’s Affective Trust Framework prioritizes emotional connection over persuasion. It means listening before messaging, showing up without an agenda, and making people feel seen, not sold to. 

Trust-building tactics in inclusive participant outreach plans don’t need to be high-tech. Sometimes, the most effective one is a phone call. Laquita Gilbert, Acclinate’s Director of Community Engagement, wrote about this in a recent blog post, Beyond Efficiency: The Power of a Phone Call in Community-Based Health. 

“This is what we mean when we talk about community-based health—meeting people where they are, not just geographically, but emotionally,” she says. “Familiarity builds comfort. Comfort builds trust. And trust opens the door for deeper conversations about health, wellness, and research participation.” 

This doesn’t mean technology is unimportant. It’s essential, but Acclinate always uses technology in service of engagement.  

4: Use AI and Predictive Analytics to Guide Outreach 

Artificial intelligence (AI) can do more than identify the “right” participants. The most effective AI tools help sponsors and CROs uncover barriers to trial participation—such as geographic access, technology gaps, or previous engagement patterns.  

Acclinate’s AI-powered solutions integrate predictive analytics with lived experience to make recruitment smarter and more equitable. 

While many AI models reinforce healthcare inequities due to biased or incomplete datasets, Acclinate takes a different approach. Our tools are built by a diverse team and continuously refined through ongoing community insight, making them more accurate, relevant, and inclusive. 

e-DICT helps identify both where participation is likely and what might stand in the way. It doesn’t replace human connection—it strengthens it.  

e-DICT works in tandem with NOWINCLUDED, our health education and community engagement platform, to foster trust, insight, and long-term participation. Both are crucial solutions to consider when developing your strategies for representative trial recruitment. 

5: Use Community Platforms Like NOWINCLUDED 

Too many outreach efforts treat engagement like a transaction when it’s really a relationship. 

NOWINCLUDED, Acclinate’s platform for ongoing education, storytelling, and health empowerment, is a space where people can share their experiences, learn about conditions that affect them, and find opportunities to participate in clinical research. 

It’s a hub for connection that yields results. In one Alzheimer’s trial, our partnership helped pre-screen nearly four times more participants in four months than the sponsor had screened in the entire previous year. 

NOWINCLUDED strengthens inclusion not through short-term campaigns, but by cultivating trust over time and across studies, which is essential for multi-phase or longitudinal trials. Together with e-DICT, it helps turn community connections into ongoing engagement. 

6: Personalize Messaging and Channels by Demographic Insight 

Mass emails and generic brochures don’t bring in trial participants—especially in communities that have been historically excluded. Tactics and strategies for representative trial recruitment must be personalized. 

Outreach needs to speak the language of its audience, literally and metaphorically. That means tailoring not just what’s said, but how and where it’s said. That informs the message and the visuals we use, as well as the method of delivery. Text, social media, video, email, phone calls—the approach must be based on each community’s preferences, access, and habits. 

Personalized campaigns spark interest and build trust in clinical research. That interest and trust lead to enrollment.  

Overcoming Enrollment Disparities: Next Steps 

It’s time for a more sustainable approach to developing inclusive participant outreach plans. And these six strategies are important to incorporate for any CRO looking to not just reach inclusion goals, but to truly represent the communities they aim to help—in the short and long term. 

Are you ready to put strategies for representative trial recruitment into action? Schedule a 1:1 meeting with our team to learn more.