Improving diversity in medical research

More generalizable findings apply to more people, making them more valuable for clinicians and policymakers in the real world.

“More generalizable findings apply to more people, making them more valuable for clinicians and policymakers in the real world [2,3].”

After discovering a causal mechanism, researchers still need to identify conditions that modify its effects, which requires testing for differences in effects between people, calling for more diverse samples than those initially tested.

“after discovering a causal mechanism, researchers still need to identify conditions that modify its effects. This requires testing for differences in effects between people, calling for more diverse samples than those initially tested [3,7].”

If medical researchers make claims that are broader than warranted by the evidence or that mask variations, and if articles with such claims are impactful and summarized for practitioners without adjustments in generalization scope, this may contribute to regulatory approval or clinical use of treatments that are ineffective or harmful for people.

“If medical researchers make claims that are broader than warranted by the evidence or that mask variations, and if articles with such claims are impactful and summarized for practitioners without adjustments in generalization scope, this may contribute to regulatory approval or clinical use of treatments that are ineffective or harmful for people [3,19].”

Relevant similarities between populations cannot always be taken as given but may need to be supported through testing of diverse groups or an explicit articulation of background assumptions that warrant generalizations across populations.

“These findings highlight that relevant similarities between the populations cannot always be taken as given but may need to be supported through the testing of diverse groups [3] or an explicit articulation of background assumptions that warrant generalizations across populations.”

If researchers conclude that a treatment is safe based only on a Western sample and do not consider whether being Western may influence relevant causal mechanisms, clinicians reading the article may come to use unsafe treatments for non-Western individuals.

“If researchers conclude in their articles that a treatment is safe, but they only sampled a Western population and did not consider whether being Western may influence relevant causal mechanisms, clinicians reading the article may come to use unsafe treatments for non-Western individuals, as ethnicity and Western background have been found to affect many clinical outcome measures [3].”

Since many clinical differences between Western and non-Western populations have been reported, invariance in relevant features across these populations cannot be assumed but should be examined.

“However, since many clinical differences between Western and non-Western populations have been reported, invariance in relevant features across these populations cannot be assumed but should be examined [3,40–42].”