Non-reporting and inconsistent reporting of race and ethnicity in articles that claim associations among genotype, outcome, and race or ethnicity

Background: The use of race as a category in medical research is the focus of an intense debate, complicated by the inconsistency of presumed independent variables, race and ethnicity, on which analysis depends. Interpretation is made difficult by inconsistent methods for determining the race or eth...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of medical ethics 2006-12, Vol.32 (12), p.724-728
Main Authors: Shanawani, H, Dame, L, Schwartz, D A, Cook-Deegan, R
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bias
Bioethics
Biomedical research
Continental Population Groups
Data Collection
Epidemiology
Ethics, Research
Ethnic Groups
Ethnicity
Genetic research
Genetics
Genotype
Genotype & phenotype
Genotypes
Health aspects
Health care inequality
Health disparities
Health outcomes
Human Experimentation - ethics
Human genetics
Humans
Medical genetics
Medical research
Medicine, Experimental
Methods
Periodicals as Topic
Population genetics
Public health
Publishing
Race
Research Design
Research Ethics
Risk factors
Search strategies
Studies
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Summary:Background: The use of race as a category in medical research is the focus of an intense debate, complicated by the inconsistency of presumed independent variables, race and ethnicity, on which analysis depends. Interpretation is made difficult by inconsistent methods for determining the race or ethnicity of a participant. The failure to specify how race or ethnicity was determined is common in the published literature. Hypothesis: Criteria by which they assign a research participant to racial or ethnic categories are not reported by published articles. Methods: Methods were reviewed for assigning race and ethnicity of research participants in 268 published reports reporting associations among race (or ethnicity), health outcome and genotype. Results: Of the 268 published reports reviewed, it was found that 192 (72%) did not explain their methods for assigning race or ethnicity as an independent variable. This was despite the fact that 180 (67%) of those reports reached conclusions about associations among genetics, health outcome and race or ethnicity. Conclusions: More attention needs to be given to the definition of race and ethnicity in genetic studies, especially in those diseases where health disparities are known to exist.
ISSN:0306-6800
1473-4257
DOI:10.1136/jme.2005.014456