Genetic Research and Health Disparities

[Guest guest]

From The Journal of American Medicine Vol. 291 No. 24, June 23/30, 2004

Genetic Research and Health Disparities

Pamela Sankar, PhD; Mildred K. Cho, PhD; Celeste M. Condit, PhD;

M. Hunt, PhD; Barbara Koenig, PhD; Marshall, PhD;

Soo-Jin Lee, PhD; Spicer, PhD

Alleviating health disparities in the United States is a goal with broad

support. Medical research undertaken to achieve this goal typically

adopts the well-established perspective that racial discrimination and

poverty are the major contributors to unequal health status. However,

the suggestion is increasingly made that genetic research also has a

significant role to play in alleviating this problem, which likely

overstates the importance of genetics as a factor in health disparities.

Overemphasis on genetics as a major explanatory factor in health

disparities could lead researchers to miss factors that contribute to

disparities more substantially and may also reinforce racial

stereotyping, which may contribute to disparities in the first place.

Arguments

that promote genetics research as a way to help alleviate health

disparities are

augmented by several factors, including research funding initiatives and

the distinct

demographic patterns of health disparities in the United States.

Author Affiliations: Center for Bioethics, School of Medicine,

University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia (Dr Sankar); Department of

Neurology and Neurological Sciences (Dr Koenig), Center for Biomedical

Ethics (Drs Cho, Koenig, and Lee), Stanford University, Palo Alto,

Calif; Department of Speech Communication, University of Georgia, Athens

(Dr Condit); Department of Anthropology, Michigan State University, East

Lansing (Dr Hunt); Department of Bioethics, School of Medicine, Case

Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (Dr Marshall); and

University of Colorado School of

Medicine, Denver (Dr Spicer).