Lupus presents earlier and more severely among patients with skin of color (SOC), and this population suffers from worse outcomes. Providers rely on medical education materials when developing skills to care for patients, yet these resources historically underrepresent SOC and marginalize vulnerable populations. In this study, we investigated if this publication bias extends to images depicting patients with lupus.
We reviewed published images of patients with lupus from rheumatology, dermatology, and internal medicine textbooks and medical journals, SOC atlases, online image libraries, UpToDate
We assessed the skin tone of 1,417 images. The significant majority (56.4%) of the images represented light skin (χ
Published images of lupus underrepresent SOC, which may limit providers' ability to deliver care to the patients who are at greatest risk for complications.