Quantification of race/ethnicity representation in Alzheimer’s disease neuroimaging research in the USA: a systematic review

Background Racial and ethnic minoritized groups are disproportionately at risk for Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), but are not sufficiently recruited in AD neuroimaging research in the United States. This is important as sample composition impacts generalizability of findings, biomarker cutoffs, and treatment effects. No studies have quantified the breadth of race/ethnicity representation in the AD literature. Methods This review identified median race/ethnicity composition of AD neuroimaging US-based research samples available as free full-text articles on PubMed. Two types of published studies were analyzed: studies that directly report race/ethnicity data (i.e., direct studies), and studies that do not report race/ethnicity but used data from a cohort study/database that does report this information (i.e., indirect studies). Results Direct studies ( n = 719) have median representation of 88.9% white or 87.4% Non-Hispanic white, 7.3% Black/African American, and 3.4% Hispanic/Latino ethnicity, with 0% Asian American, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, and American Indian/Alaska Native, Multiracial, and Other Race participants. Cohort studies/databases ( n = 44) from which indirect studies ( n = 1745) derived are more diverse, with median representation of 84.2% white, 83.7% Non-Hispanic white, 11.6% Black/African American, 4.7% Hispanic/Latino, and 1.75% Asian American participants. Notably, 94% of indirect studies derive from just 10 cohort studies/databases. Comparisons of two time periods using a median split for publication year, 1994–2017 and 2018–2022, indicate that sample diversity has improved recently, particularly for Black/African American participants (3.39% from 1994–2017 and 8.29% from 2018-2022). Conclusions There is still underrepresentation of all minoritized groups relative to Census data, especially for Hispanic/Latino and Asian American individuals. The AD neuroimaging literature will benefit from increased representative recruitment of ethnic/racial minorities. More transparent reporting of race/ethnicity data is needed. Plain language summary Members of some racial and ethnic minority groups in the USA are more likely to develop Alzheimer’s Disease than white people. However, they are often not included in research studies of Alzheimer’s Disease. We looked at the race/ethnicity composition of people evaluated in papers published describing Alzheimer’s Disease research studies based in the USA that used images of the brain. We found that