Affiliations: [a] Department of Physiology and Functional Genomics, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA
| [b] Department of Physical Therapy, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA
| [c] Department of Occupational Therapy, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA
Correspondence:
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Correspondence to: Alison M. Barnard, DPT, PhD, Department of Physiology and Functional Genomics, University of Florida College of Medicine, Box 100274, Gainesville, FL 32610-0274, USA. Tel.: +1 352 273 9450; E-mail: alisonbarnard@ufl.edu.
Abstract: Observational research benefits from inclusion of diverse cohorts. To characterize racial and ethnic diversity in observational and natural history research studies of Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), highly cited and influential observational studies were identified. Fourteen United States-based articles were included. All studies cited >70% White participants with the majority having few racial minority participants. Enrollment of Black/African American individuals was particularly limited (<5% in all but one study), and Hispanic/Latino participants ranged from 3.3– 26.5% of cohorts. These results suggest a need for effective strategies to recruit, enroll, and retain racially and ethnically diverse populations into observational research in DMD.
