Contributions of African Americans in Medicine

As its initial project, the Cobb Institute plans to mine, archive, and digitize the scholarly works of Dr. William Montague Cobb so that his contributions to science and medicine may be recognized. Dr. Cobb, physician, anthropologist, health advocate, and Editor of the Journal of the National Medical Association, was one of the few scientists in the first half of the 20th century to challenge the notion of racial and gender-based intellectual inferiority.  He used novel interdisciplinary approaches to support his arguments. Yet, his interdisciplinary approaches and his contributions to the fields of medicine, health policy, and anthropology, remain obscure. 

Clinical Research: African Americans and other minorities have historically been under-represented in clinical research. 
Racial and ethnic minorities are the fastest growing segment of the U.S. population.  It is the position of the National Medical Association and the W. Montague Cobb/NMA Health Institute that African Americans and other minority patients and physicians are inadequately represented in clinical trials.  We believe this lack of representation compromises the quality and vilidaty of clinical trial findings used to guide appropriate treatment of minority patients. It is important that African Americans and other minorities participate in all aspects of biomedical research and clinical trials.

Project IMPACT of the NMA and the Cobb Institute are partnering to implement a program that supports the increased involvement of minority physicians and patients in clinical research as well as the dissemination of research findings for better care of patients. The program will focus on eliminating impediments and sharing best practices for the conduct and documentation of clinical research.