The Meanings of Race in the New Genomics: Implications for Health Disparities Research
![handle is hein.journals/yjhple1 and id is 37 raw text is: The Meanings of Race in the New Genomics:
Implications for Health Disparities Research
Sandra Soo-Jin Lee, Ph.D.,'Joanna Mountain, Ph.D.,t and Barbara A.
Koenig, Ph.D.
The challenge is then to analyze the causes of racism while avoiding the
implication that race exists.
-Steven Miles, 1993
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen
and philosophers and divines.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance, 1841
Eliminating the well-documented health disparities found within the
United States population is a laudable public policy goal. Social justice
demands that we understand the sources of health inequality in order to
eliminate them. A central dilemma is: To what extent are health disparities
the result of unequal distribution of resources, and thus a consequence of
varied socioeconomic status (or blatant racism), and to what extent are
* Sandra Soo-Jin Lee is a Post Doctoral Fellow at the Center for Biomedical Ethics and a
lecturer in the Department of Cultural and Social Anthropology at Stanford University.
t Joanna Mountain is an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Anthropological
Sciences and Genetics at Stanford University.
t Barbara A. Koenig is an Associate Professor of Medicine and the Executive Director of the
Center for Biomedical Ethics at Stanford University. She is also a member of the Secretary's
Advisory Committee on Genetic Testing for the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services.
§ The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support of The Greenwall Foundation,
SmithKline Beecham Corporation, the Department of Energy (Ethical, Legal, and Social
Implications [ELSI] Program), and the National Human Genome Research Institute (ELSI
Program). Thomas Denberg generously provided comments on an earlier draft of the
manuscript. Lorraine Caron, Sara Tobin, and LaVera Crawley from the Stanford Center for
Biomedical Ethics also reviewed sections of the manuscript and offered helpful advice.
Finally we wish to thank the editors of the Yale Journal of Health Policy, Law, and Ethics for
their invitation to participate in a stimulating conference launching the new Journal, and
for their patience and careful editorial assistance.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/yjhple1&div=6&collection=journals&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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The Meanings of Race in the New Genomics: Implications for Health Disparities Research
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