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Thursday, October 09, 2003To measure minority participation, Ross and Catherine Walsh, a medical student at the University of Chicago, combed through all the full-length articles in the three main pediatric research journals (Pediatrics, Journal of Pediatrics, and Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine) from July 1999 through June 2000. They found 128 articles that included data on race and ethnicity. The number of subjects ranged from eight (their lower limit) to 6,982, for a total of 58,413 and a per-study average of 575. They compared the percentages of racial and ethnic groups in medical research to census data. ...They were surprised to find that African Americans were well represented, in fact overrepresented, in clinical research. Although they make up 15 percent of the U.S. population, 26 percent of children involved in medical research were African American, and 32 percent of those enrolled in clinical trials. Although 69 percent of the U.S. population is white, only 54 percent of children in medical research were white and only 52 percent of those enrolled in clinical trials. That isn’t so surprising, when you consider that most medical schools - which is where the majority of clinical trials occur - are in urban neighborhoods, where more minorities live. People tend to go to doctors that are geographically close. And while it may be difficult to get in for a routine appointment at a teaching hospital clinic, there’s no difficulty getting signed up for clinical trials. They even advertise for subjects around the neighborhood. But don’t worry, the researchers still manage to find racism lurking in their results: Both black and Hispanic children were overrepresented in research on topics that were potentially stigmatizing, such as studies of child abuse, high-risk behaviors or HIV. Fifteen percent of the U.S. population is black but 30 percent of the children in potentially stigmatizing research studies were African American. While 17 percent of the U.S. population is Hispanic, only 10 percent of the children in medical research were Hispanic, and 17 percent of those involved in potentially stigmatizing studies. Wait a minute. They already found that about 30% of research subjects in general were black, so blacks aren’t any more over-represented in “stigmatizing studies” than they are in any other study. There does appear to be a discrepancy for Hispanics. But then again, the researchers noted that classifying people as Hispanic or not-Hispanic was extremely difficult. There were just too many variations on "Hispanic", thanks to ethnic intermingling. Which could certainly influence the reliability of their findings. And don't you think that someday, we'll reach a point where race is difficult to define across all ethnic categories? When I look at my young patients, I'd guess that day is only about a generation away. posted by Sydney on 10/09/2003 08:25:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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