Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a devastating interstitial lung disease (ILD) characterised by progressive, irreversible pulmonary parenchymal fibrosis leading to substantial morbidity and shortened survival [1]. Although IPF seems to affect older men predominantly, the true prevalence of IPF in women is difficult to establish, and women may be underdiagnosed while men are overdiagnosed with IPF based on gender alone [2]. Racial and ethnic distribution of IPF has also not been well evaluated in the literature so far, although some studies suggest that non-white patients are diagnosed with IPF at a younger age, and that those of black ethnicity are less likely to receive a diagnosis of IPF [3, 4]. Broad and equitable representation and inclusion of patients with diverse race and gender in clinical research is important, especially for a disease such as IPF, where the prognosis is poor and the effective interventions are few. Equitable representation in research that matches the true distribution of disease in populations allows for improved external validity of findings, leading to increased generalisability of interventions to all patients living with IPF [5].

特发性肺纤维化（IPF）是一种破坏性间质性肺病（ILD），其特征是进行性、不可逆的肺实质纤维化，导致严重的发病率和缩短的生存期[1]。尽管 IPF 似乎主要影响老年男性，但很难确定女性 IPF 的真实患病率，女性可能被漏诊，而男性仅根据性别被过度诊断为 IPF [2]。迄今为止，文献中也没有很好地评估 IPF 的种族和民族分布，尽管一些研究表明，非白人患者在较年轻时被诊断出患有 IPF，而黑人则不太可能被诊断为IPF [3, 4]。在临床研究中广泛和公平地代表和包容不同种族和性别的患者很重要，特别是对于 IPF 这样的疾病，预后较差，有效干预措施很少。与人群中疾病的真实分布相匹配的研究中的公平代表性可以提高研究结果的外部有效性，从而提高干预对所有 IPF 患者的普遍性 [5]。