Comparison of reporting of ethnicity in US and European randomised controlled trials

Increasing evidence shows that different ethnic groups respond differently to educational, psychosocial, and pharmacological interventions. If diverse communities are to benefit from the implementation of appropriately derived evidence then it is imperative that the ethnic diversity of populations under study are reflected in clinical trials. In the United States, since 1993, the National Institutes of Health have instituted policy insisting that minority groups are represented in study samples unless there is a compelling reason not to do so.1 However, no comparable legislation exists in Europe. We sought to compare reporting of ethnicity in published reports of US and European randomised controlled studies. We searched Medline for reports of trials published in 2002 using the Cochrane optimal search strategy.2 We downloaded titles and abstracts of study reports into the reference manager database and randomly …