Minority Health and Health Equity Archive
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Item Beliefs about tobacco use in African Americans.(2007) Halbert, Chanita Hughes; Gandy, Oscar H; Collier, Aliya; Shaker, LeeThese results suggest that African Americans believe that biological factors such as genes play a limited role in tobacco use behaviors. Sociodemographic factors, rather than tobacco use, are important to beliefs about tobacco use among African Americans.Item Genes, Environment, and Race: Quantitative Genetic Approaches(2005) Whitfield, Keith E; McClearn, GeraldUnderstanding the origins of racial health disparities is currently a central focus of health-oriented funding agencies and the health policy community. In particular, the role of genetics in the origin of racial health disparities is receiving growing attention and has been susceptible to considerable misinterpretation. In this article, the authors provide a basic discussion about the concept of genes and race, an introduction to quantitative genetics, and some examples of quantitative genetic analyses of health conditions in an underserved population. The intent is to outline the conceptual limitations of exclusivist views of either environmental or genetic determination and to emphasize the coaction and interaction of genes and environments in health.Item Genes, Race, and Psychology in the Genome Era(2005) Anderson, Norman B; Nickerson, Kim JThe mapping of the human genome has reawakened interest in the topic of race and genetics, especially the use of genetic technology to examine racial differences in complex outcomes such as health and intelligence. Advances in genomic research challenge psychology to address the myriad conceptual, methodological, and analytical issues associated with research on genetics and race. In addition, the field needs to understand the numerous social, ethical, legal, clinical, and policy implications of research in this arena. Addressing these issues should not only benefit psychology but could also serve to guide such thought in other fields, including molecular biology. The purpose of this special issue is to begin a discussion of this issue of race and genetics within the field of psychology. Several scholars who work in the fields of genetics, race, or related areas were invited to write (or had previously submitted) articles sharing their perspectives.Item From Genes to Social Science: Impact of the Simplistic Interpretation of Race, Ethnicity, and Culture on Cancer Outcome(2001) Kagawa-Singer, MarjorieOver the last 30 years, dramatic advances have been made in understanding the cell biology of cancer and the genetic changes involved in oncogenesis. Many tumors now are curable and overall, cancer mortality has decreased significantly. Cancer has been transformed from a primarily fatal disease into a chronic condition. To accelerate these trends, the American Cancer Society has set its goals for the year 2015 to reduce the burden of cancer in this country. The goals are to decrease mortality by 50% and decrease the rate of incidence by 25%, as well as increase the quality of life for all individuals with cancer. However, to achieve these goals, changes must occur on two levels, in cancer control research and programming. Greater resources must be directed toward social and behavioral research, and conceptual clarity must be developed so that refinements can be made in the methodologies used to study the effects of cultural differences on health behavior. This paper provides a broad overview of the complex, intricate, and interrelated interaction that is emerging as a salient area of study. To our knowledge, the information to date is in disparate disciplines and needs to be integrated within an overarching framework for cancer control in diverse populations.Item Why Genes Don't Count (for Racial Differences in Health)(2000) Goodman, Alan HThere is a paradoxical relationship between "race" and genetics. Whereas genetic data were first used to prove the validity of race, since the early 1970s they have been used to illustrate the invalidity of biological races. Indeed, race does not account for human genetic variation, which is continuous, complexly structured, constantly changing, and predominantly within "races." Despite the disproof of race-as-biology, genetic variation continues to be used to explain racial differences. Such explanations require the acceptance of 2 disproved assumptions: that genetic variation explains variation in disease and that genetic variation explains racial variation in disease. While the former is a form of geneticization, the notion that genes are the primary determinants of biology and behavior, the latter represents a form of racialization, an exaggeration of the salience of race. Using race as a proxy for genetic differences limits understandings of the complex interactions among political-economic processes, lived experiences, and human biologies. By moving beyond studies of racialized genetics, we can clarify the processes by which varied and interwoven forms of racialization "under the skin."Item Exploration of the impact of messages about genes and race on lay attitudes(2004) Condit, CM; Parrott, RL; Bates, BR; Bevan, J; Achter, PJThe effect of messages about genetics on lay audiences was assessed through an experimental study that exposed participants (n=96) to a Public Service Announcement about race, genes, and heart disease. Participants who received a message that specified either ‘Whites’ or ‘Blacks’ as the subject of the message demonstrated elevated levels of racism, genetic basis for racism, and one dimension of genetic discrimination as compared to those receiving a version of the message with no race specification or in a no-message control condition. The presentation of such messages to the public is not recommended until additional research clarifies this finding and perhaps describes mitigating vocabularies or approaches.Item Categorization of humans in biomedical research: genes, race and disease(2002) Risch, Neil; Burchard, Esteban; Ziv, Elad; Tang, HuaA debate has arisen regarding the validity of racial/ethnic categories for biomedical and genetic research. Some claim ‘no biological basis for race’ while others advocate a ‘race-neutral’ approach, using genetic clustering rather than self-identified ethnicity for human genetic categorization. We provide an epidemiologic perspective on the issue of human categorization in biomedical and genetic research that strongly supports the continued use of self-identified race and ethnicity.Item Assessing genetic contributions to phenotypic differences among 'racial' and 'ethnic' groups(2004) Mountain, Joanna L; Risch, NeilDescriptions of human genetic variation given thirty years ago have held up well, considering the substantial accrual of DNA sequence data in the interim. Most importantly, estimates of between-group genetic variation have remained relatively low. Despite the low average level of between-group variation, clusters recently inferred from multilocus genetic data coincide closely with groups defined by self-identified race or continental ancestry. This correspondence implies that genetic factors might contribute to unexplained between-group phenotypic variation. Current understanding of the contribution of genes to variation in most complex traits is limited, however. Under these circumstances, assumptions about genetic contributions to goup differences are unfounded. In the absence of detailed understanding, 'racial' and 'ethnic' categories will remain useful in biomedical research. Further, we suggest approaches and guidelines for assessing the contribution of genetic factors to between-group phenotypic differences, including studies of candidate genes and analyses of recently admixed populations.Item A High-Density Admixture Map for Disease Gene Discovery in African Americans(2004) Smith, Michael W; Patterson, Nick; Lautenberger, James A; Truelove, Ann L; McDonald, Gavin J; Waliszewska, Alicja; Kessing, Bailey D; Malasky, Micahel J; Scafe, Charles; Le, Ernest; De Jager, Philip L; Mignault, Andre A; Yi, Zeng; de The, Guy; Essex, Myron; Sankale, Jean-Louis; Moore, Jason H; Poku, Kwabena; Phair, John P; Goedert, James J; Vlahov, David; Williams, Scott M; Tishkoff, Sarah A; Winkler, Cheryl A; De La Vega, Francisco M; Woodage, Trevor; Sninsky, John J; Hafler, David A; Altshuler, David; Gilbert, Dennis A; O'Brien, Stephen J; Reich, DavidAdmixture mapping (also known as “mapping by admixture linkage disequilibrium,” or MALD) provides a way of localizing genes that cause disease, in admixed ethnic groups such as African Americans, with ∼100 times fewer markers than are required for whole-genome haplotype scans. However, it has not been possible to perform powerful scans with admixture mapping because the method requires a dense map of validated markers known to have large frequency differences between Europeans and Africans. To create such a map, we screened through databases containing ∼450,000 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) for which frequencies had been estimated in African and European population samples. We experimentally confirmed the frequencies of the most promising SNPs in a multiethnic panel of unrelated samples and identified 3,011 as a MALD map (1.2 cM average spacing).We estimate that this map is ∼70% informative in differentiating African versus European origins of chromosomal segments. This map provides a practical and powerful tool, which is freely available without restriction, for screening for disease genes in African American patient cohorts. The map is especially appropriate for those diseases that differ in incidence between the parental African and European populations.Item RACE AND GENE STUDIES: What Difference Makes a Difference?(2004) Adelman, LarryIn 1851 the Louisiana physician Dr. Samuel Cartwright observed a behavior evident in African Americans but absent in whites. They tended to run away from slave plantations. He attributed this odd affliction to a disease peculiar to Negroes. He even gave it a name, “drapetomania.”