Is AcurianHealth Legit? Pros, Cons & Our Unbiased Opinion
Is AcurianHealth legit? Find out what you need to know about this company and if they truly connect you with ongoing clinical studies.
Is AcurianHealth legit? Find out what you need to know about this company and if they truly connect you with ongoing clinical studies.
You’re probably here because you’ve heard about or received an e-mail from AcurianHealth.
They reach out to people and ask them to participate in clinical trials that may benefit science.
In exchange, you may get monetary compensation, access to specialized physicians, and full body screening and care.
But is AcurianHealth legit? Are you too hesitant about whether you should take part in such experiments?
You’re not alone in this. Many people actually wonder about the legitimacy of this company, and since information online is scarce, they’re often left with no answer.
Fortunately, we’ve done the homework and gathered everything there is to gather about AcurianHealth, and this article will discuss all of it.
According to their official website, AcurianHealth is a company that aids in advanced health research by helping connect research studies with thousands of people all over the world.
It’s important to understand that these clinical trials aren’t experiments on humans.
Such trials serve to understand how useful a new/experimental treatment is by noticing how effective it can be on people who qualify for the experiment.
The result is supposed to be a win/win situation.
Those clinical research studies get to study how effective their medications are, and the participants get compensated for their time and distance traveled (if the research center is far from the residence).
If someone wants to start volunteering their time to AcurianHealth, they should start by visiting their website and checking whether they qualify to participate in the available studies or not.
They will request the user’s age, e-mail, and phone number. The next step would be reading and agreeing to the privacy policy and terms and conditions.
The last step would be to provide a zip code so the user can be directed to the details and the location of the local study, if available.
The user would then be given a 15-minute survey that discusses their medical history in detail.
If, for any reason, the user is failing to utilize the website, they may call at any time at 888-351-9685.
Here are some questions you might have in mind about AcurianHealth:
AcurianHealth claims that it utilizes conventional methods to reach its participants.
These methods include online advertising, targeted outreach, and partnerships with healthcare providers.
However, as we’ll discuss later in the article, some people reported that they received e-mails from AcurianHealth that discussed medical information they’ve never shared with them.
This raises some questions about the methods that AcurianHealth uses to obtain this information.
Once you’re interested in participating in medical research, you’ll be greeted with a survey to assess whether you’re eligible based on the study criteria.
If you meet the requirements, you’ll be told to expect to undergo some physical screening to ensure that you don’t have any diseases that may pose a risk to your health during the experiment.
Participants will have to give a decent amount of personal and medical information before participating in the studies, which is why they might wonder if their personal information could be compromised.
In the meantime, there’s no way to completely verify whether the information is kept confidential or used for any other purposes.
However, as you’ll notice if you continue reading, there’s a good chance that the information isn’t as safe as it should be.
AcurianHealth claims that it partners with reputable pharmaceutical companies and research organizations to ensure that all paid clinical trials meet scientific and ethical standards.
However, many users claimed that they weren’t able to find any trials near their location to begin with.
The users were located in multiple areas throughout the states, with no luck finding any studies to participate in.
AcurianHealth was founded in 1998, so it’s safe to say that it’s been around for a while, which isn’t something we can say about scammers or fake companies, right?
Plus, it can seem like one of those services that pay you for your time/opinion/feedback, like Tech Research Studies and Drumo Surveys.
This is when things start to get controversial. There are multiple reasons why we can’t say for sure whether AcurianHealth is legitimate or not.
The first thing we noticed is how the website is suspicious. For example, the diseases aren’t organized in any order, alphabetical or not. They’re thrown there without any pattern.
The diseases written also don’t entirely fall into the category of “diseases.”
For example, among various diseases like diabetes and osteoporosis, you’ll see “High Cholesterol” and “Heart Health,” which aren’t even diseases.
There are also multiple instances of incomplete names, like Crohn’s (supposedly Crohn’s disease) and Lupus (supposedly Lupus Erythematosus).
You’ll even find inappropriate categorization of the same disease. For example, one of the side effects of diabetes is nerve pain.
Yet, you’ll find “diabetes” and “nerve pain” mentioned separately. It’s as if someone with surface-level knowledge about medicine was in charge of this categorization.
To raise our suspicions more, we also failed to find any “About Us” section. There was no information about who they were, where they were situated, and who the owner was.
Last but not least, we noticed how the English writing on the website is non-native, as if it’s not written by an American.
We were even able to find a typing mistake in one of the FAQs that say:
Should I participate in a clinical research study? In the second paragraph of the answer, they say: “Either way, by participating you (many) help develop future medical treatments.”
You’ll never find such a typing mistake on a legitimate website.
AcurianHealth’s listed address is 929 N Front St, Wilmington, NC 28401.
Go ahead and do a quick search about it. No sign of AcurianHealth will appear on the map.
Businesses, no matter how small they are, shouldn’t have any issues registering their business and appearing on Google.
Not being able to view AcurianHealth on Google raised our suspicions even more.
We were able to find multiple complaints about AcurianHealth, all of which are unresolved, which is highly questionable.
They were mentioned in some articles as well, such as “How a Company You’ve Never Heard of Sends You Letters about Your Medical Condition,” published in Gizmodo.
The article talks about a woman named Alexandra Franco, who was invited to participate in a study about psoriasis despite never having the disease.
However, she did remember that she searched for it online in what should have been an anonymous search.
This raises a red flag that your personal information was leaked or acquired through unethical methods.
The Better Business Bureau, or BBB, is a non-profit organization focused on shedding light on trustworthy (or shady) businesses by giving them different ratings according to the feedback they receive about them.
AcurianHealth received a disappointing F rate, which means that their business isn’t even BBB accredited.
The following is what AcurianHealth claims it would do should you participate in one of their uncommon side hustles:
Now, should they be honest, we can safely say that AcurianHealth is reliable.
However, after seeing the many negative reviews and scam claims online, we find it hard to label AcurianHealth as reliable.
The answer to that question largely depends on what people qualify as “safe.”
While many people describe AcurianHealth as a scam or a waste of time, we weren’t able to find anyone claiming that there was a case of fraud or money theft.
However, many reviewers seem to agree that their medical information was leaked.
In other words, while AcurianHealth won’t steal your money, they may leak your personal information.
We were not able to find any positive reviews about AcurianHealth despite checking various forums and social media.
After not being matched with a study or somehow figuring out that their information was leaked, users have a lot to say.
We went ahead and checked AcurianHealth’s reviews and complaints on the Complaints Board, ScamPulse, and social media. Here are a few instances of what we found:
Users of both platforms are worried that their medical information is being obtained (and used) unethically. That explains the various unsolved complaints you can find there.
Social media users are mostly worried about getting scammed by AcurianHealth. Here’s what they’ve got to say about it:
We weren’t able to find any guarantees on the website.
The only section that should give some ease of mind is the FAQs section, which still feels poorly optimized for a website that has a valid SSL certificate.
AcurianHealth claims that they do. However, many users reported that after they provided their medical information, they received no response from customer support, which raised even more questions.
The only customer support option we could find on AcurianHealth’s official website is their number, 888-351-9685).
We weren’t able to find an e-mail to reach out to, nor a physical site on the map that we could visit for more information.
Based on the research we made, the appearance and optimization of the website, and the various negative online reviews, we can’t confidently say that AcurianHealth is legit.
Unfortunately, we can’t say that it’s a fraud either since nobody reported any stolen money. The one thing they kept gathering was the people’s medical information.
The website also has a valid SSL certificate and a considerably high DR (domain rating) of 70, which gives the illusion that the website has a good track record.
In conclusion, we’d recommend against participating in any kind of activity with AcurianHealth, especially if you’re concerned about your medical information.
AcurianHealth’s supposedly listed address is 929 N Front St, Wilmington, NC 28401. However, there’s no physical location to be found on the map there.
Currently, the most legitimate websites to look for are the National Institutes of Health and ClinicalTrials.gov.
If you’d like to stray away from AcurianHealth but are still interested in other companies that may be legitimate, consider checking the following:
Brett Helling is the founder and owner of Gigworker.com. Having worked in the gig economy for nearly a decade, he has mastered freelance, remote, and app-based work. You can learn more about his journey in his book, "Gigworker: Independent Work and the State of the Gig Economy", now available on Amazon.
