Knowledge gaps in fibrotic interstitial lung disease in pan-Asian populations: data not missing at random?

Ethnicity-related differences in the prevalence, age at presentation, and mortality of interstitial lung disease remain inadequately understood. The scarcity of such information is especially notable with respect to non-White individuals including those of so-called Asian ethnicity. The imprecise and generic grouping of different ethnicities under this term is embedded in the medical literature and continues to undermine its utility as a demographic and anthropological descriptor in clinical and research applications.