Science Communication & Media
Characterizing health journal policies’ for communicating race, ethnicity, sex, and gender Rae Anne Martinez* Rae Anne Martinez Michael Esposito Nafeesa Andrabi Noah Haber Lillian Norman Kene Orakwue Natalie Smith Shengeng Vang
Recent research has illuminated the lack of rigor regarding the use of social determinants in the health sciences. To address this deficit, a growing number of health journals have adopted policies with explicit instructions for communicating race, ethnicity, sex, and gender since 2021. However, the prevalence of these policies as well as their content and scope remain unexamined. We aim to systematically review and characterize journal editorial policies related to race, ethnicity, sex, and gender in three disciplines – Clinical Medicine, Epidemiology, and Public Health. We used Clarivate Analytics 2023 Journal Citation Reports to identify health journals by disciplinary classification from the Science Citation Index Expanded. Two independent samples were taken: (1) a random sample of 30% of all English language journals stratified by discipline (n=137) to provide insights into broader disciplinary-specific trends; (2) a non-random sample of 5-6 top, field-leading journals to provide insight into specific disciplinary leaders (n=16). Journals’ publicly available websites and manuscript submission portals were reviewed for relevant policies and information regarding enforcement; all information was entered into a standardized REDCap form. For comparison, we also identified and reviewed AI, casual inference, and EQUATOR Network policies. Sample 1 data collection is underway; 33% has been collected (n=45). In sample 2, we find that 60% of top Clinical Medicine and Public Health journals have race and ethnicity policies, while top Epidemiology journals have none. In all disciplines, at least 40% of top journals have sex and gender editorial policies. Content analysis will be conducted to further interrogate the race, ethnicity, sex, and gender policies in both samples. Journal editorial policies may be key structural levelers to shift disciplinary practices surrounding social determinants, but their adoption may lag behind other policy types and vary by discipline.
