Racial and ethnic underrepresentation remains widespread in clinical studies.

Now, a new paper in the journal JAMA Network Open takes a fresh look at how the problem affects research into gynecologic cancers, which affect more than 25,000 Arizonans.

The study of more than 560,000 women with endometrial, ovarian or cervical cancers finds underrepresentation of Black women in ovarian cancer trials and of Asian and Hispanic women in trials for all gynecologic cancers.

Other groups, including American Indian/Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, showed no difference.

Enrollment biases, which hinder treatment development, stem from the same factors as other health care disparities but can also arise from how researchers design their trials.

The authors call for greater efforts to engage women from underrepresented groups in future treatment studies.