Changes in reporting of race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, gender, and age over 10 years

The recognition of health disparities as an important aspect of US health care has led to renewed interest in the reporting of race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status (SES) in original research reports.

To describe reporting of race/ethnicity and SES, in comparison with age and gender, and to report changes with time.

All original research articles that focused on children and asthma that were published in The Journal of the American Medical Association, The New England Journal of Medicine, Pediatrics, The Journal of Pediatrics, and Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine were reviewed for 2 time periods, 1991-1993 and 2000-2002. Each report was assessed for coding of age, gender, race/ethnicity (number of groups and which groups), and SES.

In 1991-1993, 27 reports met the inclusion criteria; in 2000-2002, 74 were reviewed. Overall, significantly more reports described age (90.1%) and gender (78.2%) than SES (41.6%) and race/ethnicity (54.5%). During the 2 study periods, there were significant increases in studies reporting race/ethnicity (from 29.6% to 63.5%) but not in studies reporting SES or gender. Coding of race/ethnicity, even in the later time period, was largely confined to white (78.7%) and black (89.4%). Fewer reports coded Latino (55.3%) or Asian (14.9%). Only 2 of the 31 articles that coded Latino subjects contained information on ethnic subgroups, whereas none of the 8 articles included Asian subgroups.

Original research reports in a specific area (asthma) for which health disparities have been well documented still contain few data on race/ethnicity and SES, particularly in comparison with age and gender. There has been some improvement in the past decade in the reporting of race/ethnicity, but the reporting of Latino and Asian subgroups remains poor. If we are to understand health disparities, then more appropriate reporting of SES and race/ethnicity is necessary.