Racial and Ethnic Inequities in Health: Examining the Contributions of the American Journal of Epidemiology to Advancing the Science.

Abstract

The perverseness of racial and ethnic inequities in the U.S. continues to implore the investigation of their causes. While there have been improvements in the health of the U.S. population, these improvements have not been equally distributed. To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the American Journal of Epidemiology (AJE), in this commentary, we aim to highlight AJE's contributions to 1) the definition and use of race and ethnicity in research, and 2) understanding racial and ethnic inequities, both empirically and methodologically, over the past decade. We commend AJE for its contributions and for spearheading many of the challenges related to measuring and interpreting racial and ethnic data for the past 20 years. We identify three additional areas in which AJE could make further impact to address racial and ethnic inequities: 1) devote a section in every issue of AJE to scientific papers that make substantive epidemiological or methodological contributions to racial and ethnic inequities in health; 2) update AJE's guidelines for authors to justify the use of race and ethnicity; and 3) diversify the field of epidemiology by bringing a new cadre of scholars from minoritized racial and ethnic groups who represent the most affected communities into the research process.