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Inclusive methodological awareness for equity and diversity

Guest Editors

Rosemary M. Caron, PhD, MPH, MGH Institute of Health Professions School of Healthcare Leadership, USA
Elochukwu Ezenwankwo, MSc (Med), MPH, Drexel University Dornsife School of Public Health, USA


BMC Medical Research Methodology  welcomed submissions for our collection focused on Inclusive methodological awareness for equity and diversity. Inclusive methodological awareness aims to reduce healthcare disparities by encouraging the development of innovative research techniques for recruitment, engagement, and retention in health interventions and clinical trials, and diagnostic tools that can better serve a broader range of patients. Ultimately, equity and diversity within medical research and clinical practice can favor the development of a healthcare system that truly embodies the principles of fairness, inclusivity, and social justice. This collection welcomed submissions addressing methodological advances and new developments concerning equity, diversity, and inclusion in the field of medical research. 

Meet the Guest Editors

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Rosemary M. Caron, PhD, MPH, MGH Institute of Health Professions School of Healthcare Leadership, USA

Rosemary M. Caron holds a doctorate in Pharmacology and Toxicology from Dartmouth Medical School and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the Harvard School of Public Health. She is currently a Professor and Inaugural Dean of the School of Healthcare Leadership (SHL) at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Institute of Health Professions in Boston, MA, USA. Previously she held the positions of Chairperson, Director of the MPH Program, and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Health Management and Policy, College of Health and Human Services (CHHS), at the University of New Hampshire (UNH) in Durham, NH, USA.

Elochukwu Ezenwankwo, MSc (Med), MPH, Drexel University Dornsife School of Public Health, USA

Elochukwu’s work spans the areas of population health, implementation science, health services/systems and global health research. His work also include clinical trial methodology to support clinical trial teams, research institutions, funding organizations and institutional review boards in prioritizing and funding inclusive and trustworthy clinical trials. Elochukwu serves as Editor on the Editorial Board of BMC Health Services Research. He is also an External Reviewer for the NIHR Global Health Research Program and an International Collaborator on the IHME’s Global Burden of Disease, Injuries and Risk Factors (GBD) studies.

About the Collection

BMC Medical Research Methodology is welcoming submissions for our collection focused on Inclusive methodological awareness for equity and diversity. In the realm of medicals science and clinical practices, fostering inclusive methodological awareness for equity and diversity is imperative for promoting ethically sound and effective healthcare. This approach emphasizes the unique needs and experiences of diverse patient populations and aims to acknowledge and address them. By incorporating methodologies that consider factors such as ethnicity, gender, socio-economic status, or cultural background, health professionals can develop more comprehensive and empathetic approaches to patient care. Inclusive methodological awareness aims to reduce healthcare disparities by encouraging the development of innovative research techniques for recruitment, engagement, and retention in health interventions and clinical trials, and diagnostic tools that can better serve a broader range of patients. Ultimately, equity and diversity within medical research and clinical practice can favor the development of a healthcare system that truly embodies the principles of fairness, inclusivity, and social justice.

This collection welcomes submissions addressing methodological advances and new developments concerning equity, diversity, and inclusion in the field of medical research. 


Image credit: Andrey Popov /Stock.adobe.com 

  1. Diverse populations are more exposed to life course influences on adverse ageing, including brain ageing. Research into dementia in the United Kingdom inadvertently lacks diversity. Therefore, there is a need ...

    Authors: Katrina Messiha, Nicole Thomas, C. Brayne, D. M. Agnello, L. Delfmann, M. Giné-Garriga, S. Lippke and J. Downey
    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2025 25:122
  2. Public engagement with science (PES) initiatives in health research that use big data to analyze social inequalities in health requires strategies and methods adapted to the contexts of countries in the Global...

    Authors: Adalton dos Anjos Fonseca, Valentina Martufi, Walisson Angélico de Araújo, Denise Moraes Pimenta, Acácia Mayra Pereira de Lima, Juliana Araújo Prata de Faria, Danilo Luis Cerqueira Dias, Eduarda Ferreira dos Anjos, Maria del Pillar Flores Quispe, Gisela Rodrigues Piloto, Vivian Mitiko Queiroz Lima, Felipe Ferré, Marcos Antônio Gêmeos Almeida Sampaio, Erika de Souza Lopes, Blanda Helena de Mello, Diego Cavalcante Teixeira Daltro…
    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2025 25:88
  3. This paper extends current propensity score weighting methods for causal inference to better understand disparities in healthcare access across multiple racial groups. By treating each racial group as a distin...

    Authors: Jiajun Liu, Yi Liu, Yunji Zhou and Roland A. Matsouaka
    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2025 25:64
  4. This study explores practices surrounding the operationalization of ethno-racial categories (ERCs) as confounders in biomedical research, with a focus on sickle cell disease (SCD) as a model. ERCs, often aggre...

    Authors: Aida S. Kidane Gebremeskel, Minke A. Rab, Erik D. van Werkhoven, Teun B. Petersen, Marjon H. Cnossen, Amade M’charek, Karlijn A. C. Meeks and Anita W. Rijneveld
    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2025 25:63
  5. Co-creation engages diverse stakeholders, including marginalized populations, in collaborative problem-solving to enhance engagement and develop contextually appropriate solutions. It is increasingly recognize...

    Authors: Danielle Marie Agnello, Vinayak Anand-Kumar, Qingfan An, Janneke de Boer, Lea Rahel Delfmann, Giuliana Raffaella Longworth, Quentin Loisel, Lauren McCaffrey, Artur Steiner and Sebastien Chastin
    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2025 25:60
  6. Key informant interviews (KII) are a widely used method in qualitative health research to gain in-depth insights from individuals with specialized knowledge, experience, or access that is crucial to the resear...

    Authors: Hanna Luetke Lanfer, Sarah Krawiec, Miriam Schierenbeck, Victoria Touzel and Doreen Reifegerste
    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2024 24:276
  7. It is important to design clinical trials to include all those who may benefit from the intervention being tested. Several frameworks have been developed to help researchers think about the barriers to inclusi...

    Authors: K. Biggs, K. Hullock, C. Dix, JA. Lane, H. Green, S. Treweek, F. Shiely, V. Shepherd, A. Willis, T. Isaacs and C. Cooper
    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2024 24:227
  8. There has been a growing push to involve patients in clinical research, shifting from conducting research on, about, or for them to conducting it with them. Two arguments advocate for this approach, known as P...

    Authors: Imke Schilling and Ansgar Gerhardus
    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2024 24:205
  9. Lack of diversity in participants throughout the research process limits the generalizability of findings and may contribute to health disparities. There are unique challenges to recruitment of families to ped...

    Authors: Carolyn R. Bates, Renee M. Gilbert, Kelsey M. Dean, Keith J. August, Christie A. Befort, Shallyn Ward, Mary Gibson and Meredith L. Dreyer Gillette
    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2024 24:161

Submission Guidelines

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This Collection welcomes submission of original Research Articles. Should you wish to submit a different article type, please read our submission guidelines to confirm that type is accepted by the journal. Articles for this Collection should be submitted via our submission system, Snapp. During the submission process you will be asked whether you are submitting to a Collection, please select "Inclusive methodological awareness for equity and diversity" from the dropdown menu.

Articles will undergo the journal’s standard peer-review process and are subject to all of the journal’s standard policies. Articles will be added to the Collection as they are published.

The Editors have no competing interests with the submissions which they handle through the peer review process. The peer review of any submissions for which the Editors have competing interests is handled by another Editorial Board Member who has no competing interests.