Reporting minority race and ethnicity in Neurosurgical Journals

Introduction: Although disparate outcomes by race and ethnicity have recently been reported in many instances in neurosurgery, reporting race and ethnicity in surgical journals is not standardized. Trends in reporting race and ethnicity across high-impact Neurosurgical journals have not been described. We investigate whether rates of reporting race and ethnicity by peer-reviewed neurosurgical articles have expanded in recent years.

Methods: The Journal of Neurosurgery, Journal of Neurosurgery: Spine, Neurological Focus, and Neurosurgery were queried for published manuscripts that studied patient outcomes between January 2017 and June 2023. Research studies that utilized basic science and translational methods and international studies were excluded. Publication year, research modality, and inclusion of race and/or ethnicity were analyzed. SAS studio was utilized for bivariate analysis via logistic regression.

Results: Of the 318 papers reviewed, 77 reported race/ethnicity. Of the studies that reported race, 71(92%) reported frequencies for White, 52(68%) Black, 33(43%) Hispanic, and 31(40%) Asian patients. Over the eight-year period, there were no statistically significant changes in the percent of articles that include White (OR 1.443 95%CI [0.887-2.346], p=0.1392), Black (0.896 [0.690-1.164], p=0.4092), Asian (0.904 [0.706-1.158], p=0.4238), Hispanic (0.921 [0.721-1.177], p=0.5116). A significant increase in reporting of White race was observed in post-2020 years (p= 0.048).

Conclusion : Minority races remain underreported in peer-reviewed neurosurgery journals. Full disclosure of these populations across neurosurgical peer-reviewed literature may bolster existing studies and inform future studies investigating disparities.