facturers, biotechnology firms, universities, private foundations, and national societies. Within the public sector the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the largest clinical research sponsor, followed by the Department of Defense (DOD), the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

Research organizations include academic health centers, private research institutes, survey research organizations, federal government intramural research programs, and contract research organizations.

Investigators are the scientists performing clinical research from varied disciplines with a range of academic qualifications (e.g., MD, Ph.D., RN, DDS, PharmD).

Participants are the human volunteers, medical information and biological materials of human origin, or data derived from volunteers. Participants may have particular health conditions or may be healthy volunteers or populations at large.

Oversight entities include Institutional Review Boards, Food and Drug Administration, Department of Health and Human Services, Veterans Affairs, National Committee for Quality Assurance, and other national regulatory agencies.

Stakeholders/Consumers include health insurers, managed care organizations, health care systems, organized medicine, voluntary health agencies, patient advocacy groups, purchasers of health care, and providers of health care, public health systems, and individual consumers.