Oregon Cancels COVID-19 Study Over Lack of Minorities

A $24 million coronavirus study involving 100,000 people has been canceled over a lack of diversity among the study participants.

According to The Oregonian, the study was projected to have a low number of minorities such as Blacks and Hispanics enrolled.

Oregon Health & Science University was leading the study, which would have followed 100,000 COVID-19 patients for more than a year and also test 10,000 Oregon residents on a regular basis to determine if they had the virus.

One goal of the Key to Oregon study was to ensure that enough minorities participated, but the random sampling nature of it — forms were to be mailed out at random to people statewide — meant that not enough minorities would enroll relative to the state's population, experts said.

"OHSU realizes that this research cohort does not currently represent the state in the way that is necessary," the university said in a statement announcing the cancelation of the project.

The university could have directly targeted minority communities to get them to participate, but that would have altered the goal of having a random sample.

According to WorldoMeter, Oregon has seen less than 26,000 COVID-19 cases and less than 450 deaths associated with the disease.

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