Abstract
Objectives
To assess publishing trends regarding the contribution of societal systems on health
disparities within the urology literature.
Methods
We performed a bibliometric analysis of the top 15 urology journals for titles and
abstracts with the term race or ethnicity between 2000-2021. Articles were graded
by the presence of (1) race, (2) disparities secondary to race, or (3) racial disparities
secondary to structural biases. Frequencies were tabulated and logistic regression
was used to determine odds of disparities publishing.
Results
Our query returned 934 articles for review. In 484 (52%) articles, race was mentioned
as a demographic/covariate. 110 (12%) abstracts noted a racial health disparity and
only 2 articles implicated racism. Rates of more direct language varied significantly
by journal and year of publication. Discussion of disparities increased over time,
ranging from 0% in 2002 to 25% in 2020 (P-trend <.001). Logistic regression demonstrated an 11% annual increase in the likelihood
of disparity publishing (OR=1.11, 95%CI=1.08-1.14; P<.001).
Conclusions
While it is widely acknowledged that race is a determinant of health, often “race”
itself is ascribed the risk when societal inequities are largely at fault. Despite
the frequent use of race as a key covariate within the urologic literature, health-disparities
relating to structural racism are rarely explicitly named. In order to address the
systemic biases that underpin these inequities, increased awareness through clear
language in publishing is needed.
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: October 05, 2021
Accepted:
July 8,
2021
Received:
April 5,
2021
Footnotes
Disclosure: None
Identification
Copyright
© 2021 Published by Elsevier Inc.
