title: Reporting Race and Ethnicity in Genetics Research: Do Journal Recommendations or Resources Matter?
abstract: Appeals to scrutinize the use of race and ethnicity as variables in genetics research notwithstanding, these variables continue to be inadequately explained and inconsistently used in research publications. In previous research, we found that published genetic research fails to follow suggestions offered for addressing this problem, such as explaining the basis on which these labels are assigned to populations. This study, an analysis of genetic research articles using race or ethnicity terms, explores possible features of journals that are associated with improved reporting of race and ethnicity in genetic research. A journal's expressed commitment to improving how race and ethnicity are used in genetic research, demonstrated by an editorial or in its instructions to authors, was the strongest predictor of following recommendations about reporting race and ethnicity. Journal impact factor had only a limited positive effect on attention to these issues, suggesting that editorial resources associated with higher impact factor journals are not sufficient to improve practices. Our findings reiterate that race and ethnicity variables are used inconsistently in genetic research, but also shed light on how journals might improve practices by highlighting the need for scientists to carefully scrutinize the use of these variables in their work.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy, University of Pennsylvania, 3401 Market Street, Suite 320, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA. sankarp@upenn.edu.
authors.forename: Pamela
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Sankar
authors.affiliation: Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics, Stanford University, 1215 Welch Road, Modular A, Stanford, CA, 94305-5417, USA. micho@stanford.edu.
authors.forename: Mildred K
authors.initials: MK
authors.lastname: Cho
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy, University of Pennsylvania, 3401 Market Street, Suite 320, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA. kerimon@sas.upenn.edu.
authors.forename: Keri
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Monahan
authors.affiliation: Jefferson Medical College, 1025 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19107, USA. kamila.nowak@jefferson.edu.
authors.forename: Kamila
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Nowak
mesh_terms: D035081:Editorial Policies; D005006:Ethnicity; D005823:Genetics; D006801:Humans; D055811:Journal Impact Factor; D011643:Publishing; D044469:Racial Groups; D012106:Research
keywords: Compliance; Ethnicity; Genetics research; Journals; Race; Terminology