84 - The Use of Race, Ethnicity, and Social Determinants of Health in Three Pediatric Journals

Poster Number: 84

Wadsworth A. Williams, Northwestern University The Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL, United States; Lainie F. Ross, Univeristy of Chicago, Chicago, IL, United States

Background: In the first half of 2020, there were a number of highly publicized murders including Ahmaud Arbery (February 2020), Breonna Taylor, (March 2020) and George Floyd (May 2020) which sparked a renewed focus on the reporting and discussion of race, ethnicity, and social determinants of health in the medical literature as well as a higher standard for diversity, equity, and inclusion across medical and research institutions.

Objective: To evaluate how race, ethnicity, and social determinants of health (SDOH) are reported and discussed in three pediatric journals.

Design/Methods: Bibliometric analysis of original articles that enrolled children-participants between January-June 2021 published in The Journal of Pediatrics, Pediatrics, and JAMA Pediatrics. We recorded the inclusion of race, ethnicity, and SDOH data in the methods, results, and discussion sections of each article. Furthermore, we documented whether the authors provided any interpretation of the race, ethnicity, and SDOH data in the discussion, which we defined as any attempt to relate these concepts to the outcomes of their study.  We used chi-squared analysis to compare between journals and country of origin of the study.

Results: A total of 317 original articles were included with 200 (63.1%) conducted in the United States (US). Researchers presented 116 unique race and ethnicity categories. US studies reported race significantly more frequently than international articles (166/200, 83.0% versus 29/117, 24.8% p < 0.001). Less than half of US articles that presented race and ethnicity mentioned those data in the discussion (47.0%), and even fewer interpreted their significance and linked it to their study findings (20.5%). International articles were even less likely to mention (10.3%) or interpret (2.3%) race and ethnicity data. Less than half (46.4%) of US and international articles presented SDOH data in the results, 26.8% mentioned them in the discussion, and only 6.6% linked those data to their study findings. Only 35% (111/317) of all studied articles mentioned race and ethnicity data and SDOH data in the results, and only 6.9% (22/317) interpreted both race and ethnicity and SDOH in relation to their main study findings (Table 1).Conclusion(s): Race, ethnicity, and SDOH data are reported without consistent categories, and their significance is not often explained in both US and international articles. Researchers need to be intentional about how and why they collect, report, and interpret these data to help identify health disparities and call-out health inequities.
Wadsworth Williams' CVWadsworth_CV_PAS_Jan_22.pdf