Race, ethnicity underreported in leading ophthalmology journals
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Only 43% of full-length human studies published in 2019 in three ophthalmology journals reported race and/or ethnicity data, suggesting the need for researchers to increase reporting of racial and ethnic demographic information.
The cross-sectional study evaluated the frequency and use of racial and ethnic data in all full-length human studies published in 2019 in American Journal of Ophthalmology, JAMA Ophthalmology and Ophthalmology.
“Race and ethnic information were relatively underreported in our leading ophthalmology journals in 2019. While other background information such as age and sex were identified in 88% of human studies, race and/or ethnicity was reported in only 43%. The categories were inconsistent and heterogenous. These findings suggest we need intentional efforts to increase and standardize reporting of racial and ethnic data,” study co-author Daniel B. Moore, MD, told Ocular Surgery News.
Researchers evaluated the full-length human studies to determine if the study population race or ethnicity was included, how the categorization was described in the study, the special racial and ethnic categories reported, and whether these were reported in the abstract, methods or results. Additionally, it was noted if the study received funding from the NIH and/or included patient populations from the U.S. and if other demographic information was provided.
In 547 identified studies across the three journals, 43% included race and/or ethnicity in the methods, results and/or discussion. Of these studies, only 30 described how the data were determined in the methods or the results.
Seventy-eight races were reported in the studies. The most frequent categories of race and/or ethnicity reported were “white/Caucasian” at 68%, “black/African American” at 57%, “other” at 39%, “Asian” at 32%, “Hispanic” at 24%, “unknown” at 15% and “multiple/mixed” at 10%.
Of the studies that included data on race/ethnicity, 71.7% reported funding from the NIH and/or included patient populations from the U.S.
“To my knowledge, there is very little literature on this topic, but I doubt these journals and this calendar year are outliers. We are currently evaluating a larger data set encompassing several decades of publications in our literature, and preliminary results suggest this data is consistently underreported. Similarly, I doubt that ophthalmology is unique,” Moore said.
Moore said the results of this study mirror a 2020 study in Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, which evaluated the largest journals in medicine, oncology and surgery on the reporting of race and/or ethnicity. Researchers found 5% of 995 articles provided a formal definition of race and/or ethnicity, 10% described the methods used to classify individuals and 81 unique race/ethnicity categories were listed.
The majority of the journals, as well as the majority of ophthalmology journals evaluated in this study, reported they follow International Committee of Medical Journal Editors standards on reporting race and ethnicity, Moore said.
The importance of reporting race and ethnicity demographics can be seen in the current COVID-19 pandemic, he said.
“Mortality data as is widely publicized demonstrates a racial and ethnic disparity in the United States, with Black and Latino patients suffering at a much higher rate than whites. If these demographic data were neither collected nor reported, this would not be known, as was indeed the case early in the pandemic,” he said.
Increased awareness of reporting on racial and ethnic demographic data is necessary, but change will not likely occur until journals provide guidance and enforcement.
The results of this study should compel researchers to increase reporting of racial and ethnic demographic information, but these data should not be analyzed in a manner suggesting scientific significance, Moore said.
“These statements may initially sound confusing but are complementary. Race and ethnicity are both important to report but are not scientific categories. Journals should be explicit and vigilant in scrutinizing any data that suggest otherwise,” he said.
- References:
- Bokor-Billmann T, et al. J Clin Epidemiol. 2020;doi:10.1016/j.jclinepi.2019.11.005.
- For more information:
- Daniel B. Moore, MD, can be reached at Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, University of Kentucky, 110 Conn Terrace, Suite 550, Lexington, KY 40508; email: daniel.b.moore@uky.edu.
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