Detailed Knowledge of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study by race/ethnicity

Objectives: The purposes of this analysis were to determine the level of detailed knowledge about the Tuskegee Syphilis Study as revealed by open-ended recall and recognition questions among African-Americans, Whites and Puerto Rican Hispanics.

Methods: The Tuskegee Legacy Project (TLP) Questionnaire was administered in this random-digit dial telephone survey to a stratified random sample of 1,162 Black, White and Puerto Rican Hispanic adults in 3 U.S. cities: Baltimore, New York City, and San Juan, PR. with response rates by city, of 52%, 51% and 44%, respectively.

Results: The recall question data revealed that: 1) 90% or more of Blacks (90.2%), Whites (95.9%) and Puerto Rican Hispanics (97.3%) were not able to name or identify the TSS by giving study attributes; but 2) Blacks were the most likely to provide an open-ended answer that was categorized as either ‘definitely ID'd the TSS' or ‘most likely ID'd the TSS' than either Whites or Puerto Rican Hispanics (9.8% vs 4.1% vs 2.5%) (p ? 0.002). The recognition question data showed that: 1) the majority of each racial/ethnic group was not able to clearly identify the TSS by giving study attributes (62.9% of Blacks, 72.8% of Whites, and 91.4% of Puerto Rican Hispanics; but 2) Blacks were most likely to ‘clearly identify the TSS” giving either a ‘fact' (22.2%) or a ‘myth' (14.9%) as compared to Whites (18.9% and 8.3%) or Puerto Rican Hispanics (5.4% and 3.2%) (p < 0.001).

Conclusions: The overwhelming majority of Blacks, Whites and Puerto Rican Hispanics were unable to directly name or identify by study attributes the TSS, in response to the open-ended questions for a recall or recognition question. Nevertheless, Blacks were the most likely group to both directly name or identify the TSS by study attributes.

Supported by NIDCR grants: P50 DE10592, U54 DE014257, and T32 DE007255