A few studies have assessed the willingness of racial and ethnic minority groups to participate in individual research trials and trials that focus on single diseases [7,27,28]. However, we could find no published empirical data on the actual consent rates of minority groups for health research in general. To evaluate the widespread claim that racial and ethnic minorities are less willing to participate in health research, we assessed whether individuals from minority groups who were eligible and invited to participate in health research consented to enroll less frequently than non-Hispanic whites.
