A team lead by Vanderbilt University Medical Center has developed the Perceptions of Research Trustworthiness (PoRT) scale to gauge minority populations’ perceptions of the reliability of scientific research. By enabling researchers to assess the degree of trust or mistrust in their work, the tool, as published in JAMA Network Open, intends to increase engagement in research. The historical perspective on trust in science has changed, and by emphasizing the trustworthiness of research and investigators, the responsibility of trust is moved from the participant to the researcher. A member of the research team’s leadership, Wilkins, said that research organizations should own responsibility for being trustworthy and measure their performance in gaining and keeping trust.

The goal of the research team is to assess and analyze how trust affects outcomes across the nation using PoRT. Although it took many years to develop and validate, PoRT is now regarded as essential for selecting study participants who are representative of the general population. Using this tool, researchers can actively better themselves prior to starting the study, putting their commitments to conducting equitable studies into practice.

Teaching empathy in schools can help young people retain it as a social skill, enhancing their learning and preparing them for adulthood.
Read the full article here
https://phys.org/news/2023-04-team-scale-rebalance-burden-science.html
Hsin-Yu Huang
UConn KIDS Research Assistant

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