Peer-to-Peer Education

Patient Advocates for Lupus Studies
(PALS) Program

Lupus Therapeutics is building the first-ever peer-to-peer clinical trial education program to improve clinical trial awareness, knowledge, and enrollment, with a specific focus on ensuring diverse representation in trials.

The goals of the PALS program are to:

Increase awareness of the need for and potential risks and benefits of lupus clinical trials among a larger and more diverse population of patients
Increase participation in clinical research that ideally will lead to treatments that improve health outcomes and quality of life for people living with lupus
Increase diversity in clinical trials so study results reflect safety and effectiveness in a range of specific populations affected by lupus

PALS, all of whom have been diagnosed with lupus and have previously participated in clinical trials, receive formal training in lupus terminology, the clinical research process, and the importance of representative patient participation in clinical trials so they can address patient questions.

As the effectiveness of the PALS program is documented, our goal is to expand the program to more LuCIN centers. We plan to work with LuCIN investigators to recruit additional individuals with clinical trial experience to serve as PALS so we can extend the resource to more lupus patients throughout North America.