{"id":63778,"date":"2022-05-12T19:22:18","date_gmt":"2022-05-12T19:22:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=63778"},"modified":"2022-05-12T19:22:19","modified_gmt":"2022-05-12T19:22:19","slug":"substituting-genetic-ancestry-for-race-in-research-not-so-fast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=63778","title":{"rendered":"Substituting genetic ancestry for race in research? Not so fast"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/2022\/05\/02\/substituting-genetic-ancestry-for-race-in-research-not-so-fast\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em><strong>Substituting genetic ancestry for race in research? Not so fast<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">STAT: Reporting from the frontiers of health and medicine<\/a><br \/>\n2022-05-02<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/acflewis\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Anna C. F. Lewis<\/strong><\/a>, Research Associate<br \/>\n<em>Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts<\/em><\/p>\n<figure><a href=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/2022\/05\/02\/substituting-genetic-ancestry-for-race-in-research-not-so-fast\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"width: 75%; display: block;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/AdobeStock_83016073-1600x900.jpeg\" \/><\/a><figcaption style=\"font-size: xx-small; width: 75%; display: block;\">Adobe<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Race, widely used as a variable across biomedical research and medicine, is an appropriate proxy for racism \u2014 but not for anything biological. Proposals to use genetic ancestry instead of race are at risk of perpetuating the same problems.<\/p>\n<p>Dozens of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nejm.org\/doi\/full\/10.1056\/NEJMms2004740\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">algorithms widely used in clinical care<\/a> contain an adjustment factor for a patient\u2019s race. When <a href=\"https:\/\/ukidney.com\/nephrology-resources\/egfr-calculator\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">estimating kidney function<\/a>, for example, different results are returned depending on whether the patient\u2019s race is entered as \u201cBlack\u201d or \u201cnon-Black,\u201d though at least for kidney function the use of race <a href=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/2021\/09\/23\/expert-panel-recommends-against-use-of-race-based-tool-in-assessment-of-kidney-function\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">is being challenged<\/a>. Some <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2005\/06\/24\/health\/fda-approves-a-heart-drug-for-africanamericans.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">medications<\/a> have been approved only for those of certain self-identified racial groups. Meanwhile in research, the race of participants is routinely considered at almost every step of the research process \u2014 from recruitment to analysis to the interpretation of findings.<\/p>\n<p>Race-based health disparities have <a href=\"https:\/\/jamanetwork.com\/journals\/jama\/fullarticle\/2775794\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">reinvigorated the debate<\/a> about whether these uses of race are appropriate, and their potential connection to racism&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Read the entire article <a href=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/2022\/05\/02\/substituting-genetic-ancestry-for-race-in-research-not-so-fast\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Race, widely used as a variable across biomedical research and medicine, is an appropriate proxy for racism \u2014 but not for anything biological. Proposals to use genetic ancestry instead of race are at risk of perpetuating the same problems.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,2039,8],"tags":[33483,33484,23205],"class_list":["post-63778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-health-medicine","category-media-archive","tag-anna-c-f-lewis","tag-anna-lewis","tag-stat-reporting-from-the-frontiers-of-health-and-medicine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63778","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=63778"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63778\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63779,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63778\/revisions\/63779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}