Ethical, Cultural, and Historical Leadership Implications of Conducting Public Health Research on Minority Populations

Abstract

The study focuses on ethical and cultural research into the public health sector. The content analysis of research identifies disproportionate knowledge of implications affecting the misappropriated, disenfranchised, and institutionalized minority segments of the general population affected by COVID-19 cases. Historic mistreatment of minority individuals, inmates, and the military has left a lasting negative impression of clinical research on minority groups. In 1932, the United States Public Health Service (USPHS) began a public health research study on the lethality of syphilis using African American men from Macon County, Alabama as research subjects. Referred to as the Tuskegee Syphilis Studies (or Tuskegee Experiments), researchers monitored 600 subjects, 399 of which were previously infected with the syphilis bacteria. This article looks at the historical contexts of the lack of bioethics during Tuskegee Experiments and how it currently influences African-Americans reluctance early on to get the COVID-19 vaccines and reluctance to participate in clinical trials research.