Commentary: Considerations for Use of Racial/Ethnic Classification in Etiologic Research
Abstract
Numerous authors have critiqued the use of race as an etiologic quantity in medical research. Despite this criticism, the use of variables encoding racial/ethnic categorization has increased in epidemiology, and most researchers agree that important variation in disease risk is captured by this classification system. Previous discussions have generally neglected to articulate guidelines for appropriate use of racial/ethnic information in etiologic research. The authors summarize the logical, conceptual, and practical problems associated with the "ethnic paradigm" as currently applied in biomedical sciences and offer a set of methodological recommendations toward more valid use of racial/ethnic classification in etiologic studies. These suggested guidelines address issues of variable definition, study design, and covariate control, providing a consistent foundation for etiologic research programs that neither ignore racial/ethnic disease disparities nor obfuscate the nature of these disparities through inappropriate analytical approaches. This methodological analysis of racial/ethnic classification as an epidemiologic quantity provides a formal basis for a focus on racism (i.e., social relations) rather than race (i.e., innate biologic predisposition) in the interpretation of racial/ethnic "effects."
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Epidemiological and public health researchers have increasingly shifted their practices towards the study of social determinants of health, and in particular, the multiple ways racism affects health outcomes.
“Epidemiological and public health researchers have increasingly shifted their practices towards the study of social determinants of health, and in particular, the multiple ways racism affects health outcomes [41, 61, 71, 117, 119, 120].”
From Towards a critical race methodology in algorithmic fairness (2020) · cites this paper as [61]
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- Authors
- Kaufman, J. S.
- Affiliations
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (US)
- Corresponding author
- Kaufman, J. S.
- ORCID
- Kaufman, J. S.
- Venue
- American Journal of Epidemiology
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2001-08-15
- Volume
- 154
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 291-298
- ISSN
- 0002-9262 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2107768525
- Cited by
- 405
- References
- 6
- Citations by year
- 2026: 8 · 2025: 10 · 2024: 17 · 2023: 31 · 2022: 33 · 2021: 19 · 2020: 11 · 2019: 10 · 2018: 10 · 2017: 17 · 2016: 8 · 2015: 11 · 2014: 11 · 2013: 14 · 2012: 11
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- American Journal of Epidemiology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Civil War Book Review (submittedVersion)
- DigitalGeorgetown (Georgetown University Library) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R01 HD-39746, R01HD039746)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Race, Genetics, and Society
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Racial and Ethnic Identity Research
- Physical Sciences › Mathematics › Statistics and Probability › Statistical Methods in Epidemiology
- Keywords
- racial disparities, racism, social determinants of health, variable definitions, research design, covariate control, methodological recommendations, disease risk
- MeSH terms
- Epidemiologic Methods, Ethnicity, Humans, Epidemiologic Research Design, Causality, Confounding Factors, Epidemiologic, Guidelines as Topic, Genetic Predisposition to Disease, Racial Groups
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