Community Advisory Board
Meaning of Community Advisory Board: A community advisory board links a local community to clinical trial researchers, offering input on trial design, conduct, and how findings are communicated back.
Definition of Community Advisory Board
A community advisory board is a group of volunteers, typically without a scientific or medical background, that serves as a link between a community and the researchers conducting clinical trials in that community. Members often include patients, caregivers, and other community representatives with a personal or local stake in the research being conducted.
The board may review study materials for clarity, offer feedback on how a trial is explained to potential participants, and raise concerns about how the research affects the community it draws from, helping ensure that participant perspectives inform decisions beyond the purely scientific aspects of a trial.
Community advisory boards also play an educational role, helping explain clinical trials to the wider community and, in some cases, helping communicate study results back once a trial concludes, supporting trust and transparency between researchers and the population being studied.
Also known as
Used in a sentence
The community advisory board reviewed the informed consent materials before the trial began enrolling participants.
Good to know
A community advisory board offers guidance and community perspective on a clinical trial but does not carry the same regulatory authority as a formal ethics review board overseeing the trial's conduct.