Adam Friedman, MD: How Far There Is to Go in Addressing Atopic Dermatitis Disparities

Friedman spoke in this interview segment on improvements that have been made and improvements that he believes are needed to affect change regarding atopic dermatitis treatment disparities.

Adam Friedman, MD, Professor and Chair of Dermatology in the Department of Dermatology at the George Washington University School of Medicine & Health Sciences, discussed several other elements from his conference presentation on telemedicine as a means to changing disparities in care for atopic dermatitis patients.

Friedman spoke regarding talking points from his presentation at the Revolutionizing Atopic Dermatitis (RAD) 2023 Annual Meeting in Washington, DC., a talk titled “Using teledermatology to reduce disparities in atopic dermatitis care.”

“I think we're headed in the right direction,” he explained. “And there are multiple buckets where we are seeing improvements, and I'll try to hit on a bunch…But I think starting with research. So I think of the very now well-described shortcoming of many of the clinical trial programs is the inclusivity of those who are being evaluated for, for example, a new drug.”

He added to this point that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) clinical pipeline program requires generalizable data with many different demographics, and there is emerging dta on a spectrum of atopic dermatitis.

“So if you do not have an inclusive study population, well then you can't say the struggle worked the same in everybody,” Friedman stated. “So I know that there has been in the last couple of years a really big push to be more inclusive in studies.”’

Overall, Friedman pointed to a recent and big push for scientists to be more inclusive in studies, adding to his larger points of representing everyone.

“One of the ways we need to do that is not only ensure that our investigators feel comfortable evaluating patients of all backgrounds of all skin tones, evaluating them as they go through the study,” he said. “We also need to make sure that we're getting those solicitations in the hands of everyone. And I think that's an area that has kind of been missed.”

Friedman went on to describe some more about the major talking points featured in his presentation.

“Then there's just understanding the disease in a broad array of different backgrounds,” he stated. “And I think we are seeing some important strides in that.”

For more information on this topic, view the full interview segment on HCPLive above.