Genetic research and health disparities.
Open accessAbstract
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.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
The concept that maintaining in-group allegiances serves to protect coadapted gene complexes from outside parasitic threat does not hold up to medical evidence.
“The concept that maintaining in-group allegiances serves to protect 'coadapted gene complexes' (target article, sect. 2.1., para. 4) from outside parasitic threat does not hold up to medical evidence.”
From Parasite-stress promotes in-group assortative sociality: The cases of strong family ties and heightened religiosity (2012) · cites this paper as Sankar et al. 2004
Genes are secondary causes of health disparities in the United States, compared with social and environmental factors.
“For example, genetic research is finding that genes are secondary causes of health disparities in the United States, compared with social and environmental factors (i.e., racial discrimination, poverty) (Dressler et al. 2005; Sankar et al. 2004).”
From Parasite-stress promotes in-group assortative sociality: The cases of strong family ties and heightened religiosity (2012) · cites this paper as Sankar et al. 2004
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Fincher, C. L., & Thornhill, R. (2012) · Behavioral and Brain Sciences · doi:10.1017/s0140525x11000021 · Cited by 526 · see citing works
Mersha, T. B., & Abebe, T. (2015) · Human Genomics · doi:10.1186/s40246-014-0023-x · Cited by 450 · see citing works
Prioritizing diversity in human genomics research
Hindorff, L. A., Bonham, V. L., Brody, L. C., Ginoza, M. E. C., Hutter, C. M., Manolio, T. A., & Green, E. D. (2018) · Nature Reviews Genetics · doi:10.1038/nrg.2017.89 · Cited by 386 · see citing works
Zestcott, C. A., Blair, I. V., & Stone, J. (2016) · Group Processes & Intergroup Relations · doi:10.1177/1368430216642029 · Cited by 381 · see citing works
“1 The causes for such disparities are linked to three broad factors: Genetic/biological antecedents, socioeconomic predictors, and psychological processes that contribute to biased health care (e.g., Adler & Rehkopf, 2008; Sankar et al., 2004; Schnittker & McLeod, 2005).”
Obesity Stigma: Causes, Consequences, and Potential Solutions
Westbury, S., Oyebode, O., van Rens, T., & Barber, T. M. (2023) · Current Obesity Reports · doi:10.1007/s13679-023-00495-3 · Cited by 317 · see citing works
Race Matters? Examining and Rethinking Race Portrayal in Preclinical Medical Education
Tsai, J., Ucik, L., Baldwin, N., Hasslinger, C., & George, P. (2016) · Academic Medicine · doi:10.1097/acm.0000000000001232 · Cited by 194 · see citing works
Outcomes of interest in evidence-based evaluations of genetic tests
Botkin, J. R., Teutsch, S. M., Kaye, C. I., Hayes, M., Haddow, J. E., Bradley, L. A., Szegda, K., & Dotson, W. D. (2010) · Genetics in Medicine · doi:10.1097/gim.0b013e3181cdde04 · Cited by 90 · see citing works
Schaniel, C., Dhanan, P., Hu, B., Xiong, Y., Raghunandan, T., Gonzalez, D. M., Dariolli, R., D'Souza, S. L., Yadaw, A. S., Hansen, J., et al. (2021) · Stem Cell Reports · doi:10.1016/j.stemcr.2021.10.005 · Cited by 26 · see citing works
- Authors
- Sankar, P.
- Affiliations
- University of Georgia (US)
- Corresponding author
- Sankar, Pamela
- ORCID
- Sankar, Pamela
- Venue
- JAMA
- Publisher
- American Medical Association (AMA)
- Published
- 2004-06-23
- Volume
- 291
- Issue
- 24
- Pages
- 2985
- ISSN
- 0002-9955 (ISSN-L)
- 0098-7484
- PMC
- PMC2271142
- OpenAlex
- W2160514929
- Cited by
- 319
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 9 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 10 · 2022: 32 · 2021: 24 · 2020: 19 · 2019: 2 · 2018: 10 · 2017: 15 · 2016: 11 · 2015: 11 · 2014: 7 · 2013: 11 · 2012: 20
- FWCI
- 9.26
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- JAMA (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- University Libraries (University of Maryland) (submittedVersion)
- DigitalGeorgetown (Georgetown University Library) (submittedVersion)
- Digital Repository at the University of Maryland (University of Maryland College Park)
- Funders
- National Institutes of Health (2r01hg002207-08a1, 5r01hg002191-03)
- National Institute on Drug Abuse (R01DA014577)
- National Human Genome Research Institute (R01 HG02189-03, K01HG002299, 5R01HG002191-03, R01 HG002191, R01 HG002207, R01-HG02207-01, R01HG002189, K01HG002883)
- National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders
- National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (R01ES010830)
- National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Race, Genetics, and Society
- Social Sciences › Health › Health disparities and outcomes
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Genetic Associations and Epidemiology
- Keywords
- health disparities, genetic research, racial discrimination, poverty, racial stereotyping, genetic determinism, health equity, research funding
- MeSH terms
- Health Services Accessibility, Health Status, Humans, Minority Groups, Poverty, Prejudice, United States, Human Genome Project, Genetic Research, Healthy People Programs
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
