Introduction to the special series on health disparities in genomic medicine.

Abstract

Given the importance of minority health and health-disparities research in addressing our nation's health-care objectives, Health Psychology encourages manuscripts that reflect a range of themes in this topic. This special section focuses on genomic medicine and continues the journal's effort to highlight behavioral research in disparities. Genomics is a rapidly evolving science and is becoming ubiquitous throughout health care. Researchers and clinicians are increasingly turning their attention to the human genome and its interaction with the environment to understand root causes of many chronic diseases. For all individuals, families, and communities within our society to benefit equitably from such discoveries, genomic research must become an ally in the fight to eliminate health disparities. In this special section, 3 studies concentrate on understanding genomic risk information in racially and ethnically diverse populations, and how that information is communicated and received. These works represent a call to action for health psychologists (and social and behavioral scientists more broadly) to improve our understanding of the role of sociocultural factors in the delivery of genomic medicine through empirical research on affect, cognition, behavior, and patient-provider communication.