Author: Erica Woodahl, PhD on March 17, 2022 
We are excited by the prospects for the 2022 ASCPT Annual Meeting, which is ongoing this week. Every year, the Clinical and Translational Science (CTS) Editorial Team has the opportunity and privilege to present a CTS Award at the ASCPT Annual Meeting. This year, we have chosen to recognize the CTS paper that most reflects ASCPT’s goals of advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). The choice was a difficult one, as we had several outstanding papers to choose from. After careful review and discussion, however, it was clear to our team that the paper, “COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy: Race/ethnicity, trust, and fear,” best fit the bill as an example both of DEI and the use of translational science. This paper is an exemplar of an outstanding, highly translational CTS paper, that already has 22 citations and was the most downloaded article of 2021 with 11,082 downloads. Please have a read if you haven’t already; this is a terrific paper that digs into how location, race, past racism, and current systemic racism factor into the willingness to receive a COVID-19 vaccination. Also check out the ClinPharmPod podcast that featured this paper!
We will not have the opportunity to celebrate in person at the ASCPT Annual Meeting this year, but we wanted to again wish hearty congratulations to Dr. Pearl McElfish, corresponding author of the paper, and her co-authors for a job well done. On behalf of the entire CTS Editorial Team, it is my honor to congratulate Dr. McElfish on winning the 2022 CTS Award. The Editorial Team strives to accept high quality original research in the field of translational science, and the selection of Dr. McElfish’s article also celebrates the importance of DEI considerations in translational research. Dr. McElfish and her colleagues found that trust in COVID-19 vaccines was an important contributor to vaccine hesitancy as was trust in the medical and research establishments, with Black Americans reporting higher levels of vaccine hesitancy. Without efforts to build trust and confidence in COVID-19 vaccines, health disparities will worsen particularly for racial and ethnic minorities.
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