Lack of racial and ethnic diversity in pediatric ophthalmology clinical trials from 2000 to 2022.

PURPOSE

To examine the prevalence of and factors associated with racial and ethnic reporting and trends in such reporting and to assess whether categories of race and ethnicity have been under- or over-represented in pediatric ophthalmology randomized control trials (RCTs) in the United States.

METHODS

We systematically searched the literature on pediatric ophthalmology RCTs in high-impact factor ophthalmology journals published between 2000 and 2022. Logistic regression was used to assess parameters linked to race/ethnicity reporting; linear regression, to gauge the relationship between publication year and race/ethnicity reporting. The racial and ethnic composition of RCTs was contrasted with 2010 US census data by calculating percentage difference.

RESULTS

Of 170 eligible articles, 89 (52.4%) included race/ethnicity data. Multivariable analysis showed that academic (OR = 12.19; 95% CI, 3.34-44.44) and government (OR = 3.91; 95% CI, 1.20-12.72) funding was linked to data reporting. During the study period, publication year and race/ethnicity reporting had a nonstatistically significant 1.0% annual increase (r = 0.29, P = 0.18). White participants were over-represented, with a percentage difference of 16.7% (95% CI, 11.8%-21.7%), whereas Hispanic individuals were under-represented, with a percentage difference of -7.6% (95% CI, -11.2% to -4.1%) compared to the 2010 US census data.

CONCLUSIONS

Our results indicate a gradual rise in reported race and/or ethnicity in published pediatric ophthalmology RCTs, though not statistically significant, both in the United States and globally. Notably, under-representation of Hispanic, over-representation of White, and proportional representation of Black and Asian individuals were observed in US-based studies.