Racial and ethnic representation in primary research contributing to pelvic organ prolapse treatment guidelines

Introduction and hypothesis: To evaluate whether the studies contributing to the national treatment guidelines on pelvic organ prolapse adequately represent the racial and/or ethnic makeup of the American population.

Methods: This analysis examines the racial and ethnic makeup of all primary study cohorts contributing to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists/American Urogynecologic Society Practice Bulletin No. 214 on pelvic organ prolapse. References were excluded if they lacked a primary patient population or were from outside the US. Mean proportional representation of racial/ethnic groups was compared to the 2018 United States Census data on race/ethnicity. The representation quotient was also calculated to evaluate for relative representation of each group. Descriptive statistics were used.

Results: Of the 110 references, 53 primary studies were included in the final analysis with 30 studies reporting on race/ethnicity. On average, 82% (SD = 15%) of study populations were White, while Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians represented 67% (SD = 7%), 4% (SD = 8%), and < 1% (SD = 1%), respectively, differing significantly from the 2018 US Census (p < 0.01.) The representation quotients for White women was 1.36, demonstrating a 36% overrepresentation, while Black, Hispanic, and Asian women were underrepresented among studies of all evidence levels, with representative quotients of 0.50, 0.23, and 0.09, respectively.

Conclusions: Our study demonstrates a significant underrepresentation of non-White populations in primary cohorts of studies contributing to the ACOG/AUGS Practice Bulletin No. 214 on POP. This analysis reinforces that more efforts are required to include and report on racial and ethnically diverse cohorts to better serve all patients.