{"id":47408,"date":"2016-06-07T18:35:38","date_gmt":"2016-06-07T18:35:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=47408"},"modified":"2016-06-07T18:35:38","modified_gmt":"2016-06-07T18:35:38","slug":"thus-returning-to-the-example-of-%ef%bb%bfglaucoma-it-is-more-important-to-know-a-patients-family-history-than-to-assess-his-or-her-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=47408","title":{"rendered":"Thus, returning to the example of \ufeffglaucoma, it is more important to know a patient&#8217;s family history than to assess his or her race."},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>A dark-skinned, curly-headed person who identifies as African American may, indeed, have much in his or her history and upbringing to justify that identification. But he or she may also have a white grandparent and several <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Cherokee\" target=\"_blank\">Cherokee<\/a> ancestors. Thus, returning to the example of <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Glaucoma\" target=\"_blank\">glaucoma<\/a>, it is more important to know a patient&#8217;s family history than to assess his or her race. And collecting family history ought to mean not only compiling a list of which diseases family members have, but making some attempt to assess common (familial) habits such as diet and life experiences (e.g., first- versus second-generation immigrants, living conditions, or same versus widely varied work experience and geographical locations). Similarly, when the history of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=5864\" target=\"_blank\">passing for white<\/a> is ignored, those who identify themselves as \u201cwhite\u201d are assumed to have no ancestral \u201cblack blood.\u201d Finally, immigration patterns constantly change. A \u201cblack\u201d person walking into a <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Boston\" target=\"_blank\">Boston, Massachusetts<\/a> clinic could easily be the child of a recent immigrant from <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ethiopia\" target=\"_blank\">Ethiopia<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Brazil\" target=\"_blank\">Brazil<\/a> who has a genetic makeup as well as cultural and environmental exposures that differ significantly from the descendents of 19th century US slaves from the western coast of <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Africa\" target=\"_blank\">Africa<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Braun L, Fausto-Sterling A, Fullwiley D, Hammonds EM, Nelson A, Quivers W, et al., \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=5137\" target=\"_blank\">Racial Categories in Medical Practice: How Useful Are They?<\/a>\u201d <em>PLoS Medicine<\/em>, Volume 4, Number 9 (September 2007), pages 1423-1428. <a href=\"http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1371\/journal.pmed.0040271\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1371\/journal.pmed.0040271<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A dark-skinned, curly-headed person who identifies as African American may, indeed, have much in his or her history and upbringing to justify that identification. But he or she may also have a white grandparent and several Cherokee ancestors. Thus, returning to the example of glaucoma, it is more important to know a patient&#8217;s family history [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2082],"class_list":["post-47408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-excerpts","tag-plos-medicine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47408"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47408\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47409,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47408\/revisions\/47409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}