Racial Categories in Medical Practice: How Useful Are They?
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The widespread uncritical adoption of racial categories, standardized or not, can erode awareness of the social and political histories of racial taxonomies and reify racial categories as natural kinds.
“In fact, the widespread uncritical adoption of racial categories, standardized or not, can erode awareness of the social and political histories of racial taxonomies and reify racial categories as natural kinds [19, 30, 42, 43, 78, 100, 111].”
From Towards a critical race methodology in algorithmic fairness (2020) · cites this paper as [19]
The use of race as a natural category can obfuscate the environmental, social, and structural factors that contribute to health disparities and lead to the racialization of certain diseases.
“For example, the use of race as a natural category can obfuscate the environmental, social, and structural factors that contribute to health disparities [29, 110] and lead to the racialization of certain diseases [19, 30, 37].”
From Towards a critical race methodology in algorithmic fairness (2020) · cites this paper as [19]
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- Authors
- Braun, L., Fausto-Sterling, A., Fullwiley, D., Hammonds, E. M., Nelson, A., Quivers, W., Reverby, S. M., & Shields, A. E.
- Affiliations
- Harvard University (US)
- Venue
- PLoS Medicine
- Publisher
- Public Library of Science (PLoS)
- Published
- 2007-09-25
- Volume
- 4
- Issue
- 9
- Pages
- e271
- ISSN
- 1549-1277 (ISSN-L)
- 1549-1676
- PMC
- PMC1989738
- OpenAlex
- W2168376940
- Cited by
- 236
- References
- 82
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 12 · 2024: 14 · 2023: 36 · 2022: 20 · 2021: 20 · 2020: 12 · 2019: 12 · 2018: 9 · 2017: 4 · 2016: 6 · 2015: 7 · 2014: 19 · 2013: 8 · 2012: 10
- FWCI
- 6.27
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- PLoS Medicine (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard (DASH) (Harvard University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Columbia Academic Commons (Columbia University)
- Funders
- Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
- Yale University
- Wellesley College
- Harvard University
- National Human Genome Research Institute (P20HG003400)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Race, Genetics, and Society
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Racial and Ethnic Identity Research
- Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Diversity and Career in Medicine
- Keywords
- racial classification, race and medicine, medical practice, racial disparities
- MeSH terms
- Patient Care, Humans, Physician's Role, Professional Practice, Racial Groups
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