Table 3 Comparison of current data with earlier study

Data derived from articles from publication years

2001–2004

2008–2009

# Articles

330

170

Sample selection criteria

Medline search strategy: race and ethnicity, genetics and population keywords; AND publication in one of 3 journal type samples (genetics, clinical, and general); mainly high impact journals

Pubmed search strategy: (race OR ethnicity OR ancestry) AND (SNP OR polymorphism OR CNV) keywords; AND publication in one of six leading journals for the publication of human genetic research; mainly high impact journals

 Hypothesis

99 (30%)

169 (99.4%)

<0.001*

 Limitations

75 (22.70%)

87 (52.4%)

<0.001*

 Sample origin

206 (62.40%)

163 (95.9%)

<0.001*

Reason for using populations

 Why populations

36 (10.90%)

113 (66.5%)

<0.001*

 Why this population

37 (11.20%)

116 (68.2%)

<0.001*

 Defines generic ‘race and ethnicity’ or ‘ancestry’

0%

 0%

N/A

Ways of using populations in research

 Label for study population only

76 (23%)

82 (48.2%)

<0.001*

 Independent variable

154 (46.70%)

87 (51.2%)

0.389

 Dependent variable

16 (4.80%)

1 (0.59%)

0.026*

 DNA with a label

35 (10.60%)

 23 (13.5%)

0.412