Recruiting black men to a clinical trial to evaluate prostate cancer screening--Detroit, Michigan, 1998.

In 1998, an estimated 184,500 cases of prostate cancer will be diagnosed and approximately 39,200 men will die from this disease (1). Black men have higher prostate cancer incidence and mortality rates than white men (2). Representation of blacks in clinical trials that investigate the treatment of cancer is proportional to the burden of this disease in the black population (3). However, blacks have generally been underrepresented in clinical trials of preventive interventions (4). To determine the effect of socioeconomic status (SES) on the enrollment of black men in a trial that includes screening for prostate cancer, the African American Men (AAMEN) project in Detroit, Michigan, analyzed data from local recruitment efforts. This report summarizes preliminary results of this analysis, which indicate that SES was not an important factor in refusal to participate in the screening trial.