Representation of Racial and Ethnic Minoritized Groups in Preventive Intervention Research

Abstract

Objective. Because racial and ethnic minoritized groups disproportionately represented essential workers and lacked equitable access to resources that mitigated exposure and mortality risk, the COVID-19 pandemic brought disparities to the forefront of public health, exacerbating existing discrepancies. These inequities highlight a pressing need for the prevention science field to investigate whether interventions promote equitable well-being, which served as the impetus for this study. We examined 885 programs with evaluations published from 2010-2021 and recorded in the Blueprints for Healthy Youth Development registry of preventive interventions. Methods. Focusing on race and ethnicity but also tracking reporting of gender, location, and economic disadvantage, we conducted a descriptive analysis on the prevalence of culturally tailored interventions (i.e., those developed for specific populations) and reporting of sample characteristics. In addition, inferential analyses examined reporting time trends, as well as the relationship between study quality (i.e., methodological soundness, beneficial effects) and culturally tailored programs, and racial ethnic enrollment. Results. Most studies were conducted in the U.S. (n=583). Two percent of programs were developed for Black or African American youth and four percent targeted Hispanic or Latino populations. For the 77% of studies that reported race, most enrollees were White (35%) followed by Black or African American (28%), and 31% were collapsed across racial categories or categorized with ethnicity, thus ignoring the intersectionality of race and ethnicity. In the 64% of studies that reported ethnicity, 32% of enrollees identified as Hispanic or Latino. Reporting did not improve over time, and there was no relationship between high quality evaluations and programs developed for racial ethnic minority groups, or samples with high proportions of racial ethnic enrollees. Conclusions. Research gaps on racial and ethnic groups identified in this study indicate the need for improved representation and clear reporting to reduce disparities and improve the utility of preventive interventions.

Advancing a mission of translational intervention science: Comment on premature implementation.

“…Our group prioritizes impact, pragmatism, and external validity, after being in settings with patients, clinicians, organizational leaders, community members, and policymakers too many times to count where internal validity was prioritized at the expense of producing viable interventions to deploy in contexts where care is delivered. Our lens highlights the implications of a long tradition of overvaluing, through the investment in research, discovery oriented work that focuses earlier in the translational pipeline that has not historically centered or amplified the voices of minoritized communities and individuals with lived experience (Baumann & Cabassa, 2020; Buckley et al, 2022; Shelton, Adsul, Oh, et al, 2021). This prioritization has resulted in often nonviable interventions that are not feasible to implement outside of controlled and well-resourced settings or do not produce the same level of effective outcomes for real-world communities resulting in limited return on investment (Glasgow, 2008).…”