These 2 women are making Greater Birmingham healthcare more inclusive

3 days ago 2

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Pauline Long, Medsplus Consulting. Acclinate healthcare

We’re not the first to tell you that The Magic City is full of empowering leaders. Playing a role in making our communities more inclusive are individuals like Barbara Thomas and Pauline Long.

They’re here to tell us how they help create engaged neighborhoods across the Greater Birmingham Area.

The importance of representation in healthcare

A healthcare worker searching through supplies.

Birmingham-based startup Acclinate encourages diversity in healthcare and empowers minorities to make informed decisions about clinical trial participation.

Similarly, The University of Alabama at Birmingham’s (UAB) Minority Health & Health Equity Research Center (MHERC) has significantly impacted health disparities since its inception.

Acclinate partners with UAB MHERC to bring timely and culturally relevant health resources to the communities who are disproportionately impacted by health inequities.

They collaborate to amplify community voices that are shifting the culture of health through NOWINCLUDED, a digital platform that provides people of color an opportunity to:

Access health resources
Learn about clinical research
Share personal health stories

Birmingham locals Barbara Thomas and Pauline Long are two community voices who have been amplified by the Acclinate and UAB partnership.

Let’s meet them!

Barbara Thomas

Barbara Thomas has lived in Birmingham’s Northside since she was six years old. She is now President of the Norwood Neighborhood Association and Vice President of the Northside Community.

Barbara has worked in healthcare for 30 years and has held many roles like respiratory care practitioner and office manager for a physician’s office.

In addition, Barbara Thomas is a member of several Community Advisory Boards on grants the MHERC supports, such as the Superfund grant which looks at environmental factors impacting health and the Center for Awareness Research and Engagement which looks at the impact of cancer in persistent poverty areas.

She is also a graduate of Live HealthSmart Alabama’s Community Leadership Academy.

She was introduced to Acclinate when she took part in a focus group in her neighborhood.

“The way [Acclinate] approached the community was wonderful—because residents got to participate.

A lot of people need to know that it’s okay to ask questions. If you are not pleased with your healthcare, then you have the right to ask questions.

If we work harder to educate people and have these focus groups, then we can build trust and get them involved in research or a clinical trial.”

Barbara Thomas

Gain insight into diversifying clinical trials + how Acclinate can help you get involved.

Pauline Long

After graduating from McWhorter School of Pharmacy at Samford University, Pauline Long worked in retail pharmacy for 20 years. She’s been a longtime partner of MHERC and UAB’s work on theAlabama Community Engagement Alliance against COVID-19 Disparities (Alabama CEAL) project to ensure communities of color received essential information about COVID-19.

A few years ago, Pauline left the big box company she worked for and started her own consulting firm in Birmingham—MedsPLUS Consulting Pharmacy & Wellness Center.

“Being a retail pharmacist, you’re disposing of medicines all day, but a lot of times you don’t really get to impact patients in a positive way.

In 2021, my business partner and I both left our retail jobs and started our company full-time.

In 2023 we opened our retail pharmacy, and we’ve been assisting patients, providers and employer groups ever since.”

Pauline Long

I asked Pauline what she thought about the importance of representation in clinical trials and her response was simple: it’s the only way to get evidence-based medicine.

“The only way to know if a particular medicine will be effective in a patient is to go through a clinical trial.

If we don’t have broad representation, we won’t know if a certain medicine will harm a patient or if it will not be effective when it hits the market. These are things we need to know before a medication ever hits the market.”

Pauline Long

Building trust through education + encouragement

People listen to those they trust. In Birmingham’s Black communities, many organizations with diverse and influential members have a history of service to their neighborhoods.

“It matters that there’s an African American female pharmacist speaking to an African American patient.

During the Tuskegee experiment, there weren’t as many African Americans in the healthcare space, but now we are fully represented in research. Because of those experiments, there are parameters in place to protect you, your data and your information.

Now, we try to address challenges through education.”

Pauline Long

Both Pauline and Barbara know how crucial it is to have Black women leading efforts to have their own communities represented in healthcare.

“Because of the information we’re able to gather from data in clinical trials, not only can it help as you go through life, but it will help generations to come.”

Pauline Long

Learn more about how UAB MHERC and Acclinate increase diversity in clinical research in Birmingham and beyond.

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