Examining the under-representation of black researchers in sports science and sports medicine publications: 'You Can't be what You Can't See'.

Objectives: This study evaluated the representation of black researchers as authors of articles published in four peer-reviewed journals with the highest impact factors (IFs) in the field of sports science and sports medicine.

Methods: An analysis was conducted on articles published between 2018 and 2022 in four leading sports science journals with high IFs (2022): The British Journal of Sports Medicine, Journal of Sport and Health Science, Sports Medicine and Exercise Immunology Review. Data extraction from the articles included the researcher's names, sex/gender, total number of authors, number of black authors, their position in the author list, publication year, article title and type and digital object identifier. Sex/gender and race/skin colour were identified using publicly available photographs and methodologies aligned with previous studies and Brazilian racial heteroidentification practices.

Results: The analysis included 1737 articles and 11 158 authors. Only 144 (1.30%) authors were identified as black, of which only 38 were women, corresponding to 0.34% and 26.4% of total authors and total black authors, respectively. When considering authorship positions, only 16 (0.92%) were the first author and 19 (1.09%) were the last (senior) author. Merely 13 (0.75%) articles had two or more black authors.

Conclusion: Our findings reveal a significant under-representation of black authors in sports science and sports medicine publications from high-impact journals, particularly in prominent authorship positions. Active initiatives and policies are urgently required to address and mitigate this inequity.