By Deborah Borfitz 

February 24, 2026 | Ensuring that patients who participate in clinical trials are the ones who bear the burden of the disease is a major and well-recognized challenge due to barriers ranging from mistrust of research and science to lack of access to clinical trials and cultural and logistical barriers. “It’s a national problem, but it requires a local solution,” according to Mimi Fenton, CEO of Cedar Health Research, a clinical research site network in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. 

Fenton was speaking at the recent SCOPE event with Amanda Beasley, Ph.D., director of the Representation in Clinical Research (RISE) team at Amgen. The topic was community-centered obesity research born out of a strong, if fledgling, sponsor-site partnership. 

One noteworthy result of the collaboration was that Cedar Health Research met 100% of its enrollment targets for underrepresented populations and Native Americans represented half of the enrolled final population, reports Beasley. The key means of removing impediments to access included multiple partnerships with community physicians, including satellite research sites, as well as participation in community activities, a holistic consideration of patient needs, and ongoing education of clinical operations teams. 

A major contributing factor to enrollment success was the engagement of Texas Native Health, which provides primary care services to Natives of any federally recognized tribe living in North Texas at no charge. Gary Vollenweider, M.D., a family physician and medical director for the nonprofit organization, said in a pre-recorded interview with Fenton that he has “a huge entourage of patients who are suffering long-term complications [including obesity] they probably should never have had” because they were started on decades-old treatments for diabetes and hypertension. 

Their participation in clinical trials for innovative medicines has been prevented mostly by financial barriers, Vollenweider says. “On top of that, here in Texas and especially among the Natives there is some mistrust of the medical system.” 

But when he started bringing up the idea of trial participation to patients, they were “surprisingly open-armed,” he says. “Sometimes, they don’t even let me finish the sentence. They are more than happy to have access.” The historical skepticism Natives had about clinical trials seems to have been “by and large” eradicated. 

Vollenweider credits the turnaround to the site’s intentional efforts to understand and actively build relationships with the local Native American community. This included the participation of Cedar Health Research in some of the community activities of Texas Native Health, directly handing patients information, and the fact that it “rolled out the red carpet” for patients he has referred there. 

Beasley, together with Amgen’s Native American employee resource group, even attended a winter fair put on by the organization. During his 32 years of practicing in the private sector, Vollenweider says, he witnessed “little to no” such direct interactions between pharmaceutical companies and patients. 

Seamless Experience 

What makes the Cedar Health model unique and well suited to improving health equity is its unbridled focus on removing the burdens of trial participation on patients bearing the burden of diseases under study, says Fenton. The site network is situated in a large metroplex with a demographic representing the entire nation. 

Cedar Health Research has partnered with almost 200 community physicians in the Dallas-Fort Worth area who are interested in offering patients the opportunity to participate in clinical research but, due to high caseloads, are unable to do so. The doctors may be seeing 20, 30, or 40 patients per day, and one physician singlehandedly serves eight clinics, she notes. 

“Even if they had the money and the resources and they knew how to train CRCs [clinical research coordinators] and put SOPs in place, they may not even have the beds ... or the space to put all of the kits and the boxes and vials and everything that it takes to do clinical research,” Fenton says. “So, what we’ve done is create standalone sites spanning the entire DFW area that serve as an extension of each of those practices and enables a seamless patient journey, and we ensure continuity of care with the treating physician.” 

The greatest predictor of recruitment and retention success, after all, is “buy-in of the treating physician,” says Fenton. “If the doc says you should do this [trial], the patient is much more likely to do it.” 

In addition to dialoging with the different physicians, Cedar Health actively engages with a variety of population groups. For example, it works with a Korean church, senior centers, and other places of trust, and as much as possible integrates study sponsors into activities with those local communities. 

“It’s the little details that really matter,” comments Beasley about the site’s approach. She notes the flyers and posters written for Spanish speakers where great care is taken to make “the smallest tweak in language” for the sake of clarity and impact. 

Beasley says she is particularly enamored of Cedar Health’s “trusted phone number” strategy where incoming calls regarding research are answered as the clinic (e.g., Dr. Smith’s office). “It brings one more connection piece and not just some random person talking to yet another random person.” The facility itself resembles a “beautiful doctor’s office with spacious rooms.”