Use Of Racial Categories Research Articles

Uses and abuses of the concept of race in genomics of sport performance and sport-related traumatic brain injury: epistemological and ethical considerations

ABSTRACT In this article, we tackle the epistemological and ethical issues related to the use of race concepts in the genomics of sport performance and sport-related concussion (SRC). In the first part of the article, we show how the concept of race is ubiquitous in scientific literature, besides the fact that ‘race’ as other analogous population descriptors like ‘ancestry’ and ‘continent’ carry ancestral genetic heterogeneity and therefore they cannot be used to infer any kind of genetic or physiological property. Then, we investigate the question of whether genomics research focusing on racial categories and race-specific genes of sport performance and of risk of health outcomes due to repetitive head impacts (RHI) is justified from an epistemological point of view, arguing that it is not; we show that the evidence supporting the existence of genetic variants determining an elite athlete status or a predisposition to health outcomes after SRC is scarce, and the use of racial categories (e.g. African or Black, Caucasian or White, Asian, etc.) as proxies for genetic variants associated with an elite athlete status/a predisposition to health outcomes after SRC is ill-conceived. In the second part of the article, we analyze the main ethical issues concerning the reification of race concepts in sport genomics, also considering the more general issue of the ethical and social impact of the use of a genetic framework in the explanation of individual differences in sport performance and SRC.

Roberts Rules of (Dis)Order: Doctrinal Doublespeak on Affirmative Action and Stare Decisis

In this Article, I argue that Chief Justice John Roberts engaged in doublespeak in his SFFA v. Harvard/UNC majority opinion. He essentially overruled Grutter v. Bollinger (2003) but did not admit doing so, and even structured the SFFA opinion as if he was following Grutter’s precedent. My Article considers why Chief Justice Roberts engaged in this “stealth overruling” of Grutter and exposes his doctrinal sleight of hand in doing so. I first consider how Chief Justice Roberts may have been concerned about the Court’s legitimacy in the wake of its ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022)—where it explicitly overruled Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey (1992)—and how that might have influenced his approach to SFFA. Subsequently, I show how throughout the SFFA majority opinion, Chief Justice Roberts either misrepresented Grutter or exploited ambiguities and inconsistencies in Grutter’s doctrine to serve his agenda. I examine the SFFA majority’s treatment of various issues related to the constitutionality of race-conscious admissions policies. These include the compelling interest in diversity, deference to universities on defining their educational missions, the incidental burden of race-conscious policies on certain groups, the use of racial categories, “logical” and arbitrary endpoints for race-conscious admissions, the so-called essay loophole, and the possible military exception. The conclusion considers the consequences of SFFA’s stealth overruling of Grutter: the controversies it could lead to, and its potential impact on the Court’s legitimacy—another matter laden with ironic twists.

“Monstrous Adventurers”: The Racecraft of the Dungeons and Dragons Imaginary

This paper examines the use of racial categories within the tabletop roleplaying game ‘Dungeon’s and Dragons’ through the lens of racecraft as outlined by Karen and Barbara Fields. Examining D&D as an imaginary, I explore how its mechanics and fiction create categories of race through a process of profiling that produces sumptuary codes, perpetuates a racial hierarchy, invokes racialized accounts of biology, and constitutes a racialized gaze. Through stressing the continuity of this fictional account of race with real world racecraft, I analyze how the fiction of D&D fails to imagine beyond the condition of race. This fiction thereby operates as a mirror that reflects back to us the difficulties of thinking beyond such racial logics, reaffirming the need for continued critique and a reimagining of race.

Antiracist Structural Intervention at the Emory University Institutional Review Board.

Although racial and ethnic categories are social constructs without inherent biologic or genetic meaning, race and ethnicity impact health outcomes through racism. The use of racial categories in biomedical research often misattributes the cause of health inequities to genetic and inherent biological differences rather than to racism. Improving research practices around race and ethnicity is an urgent priority and requires education as well as structural change. We describe an evidence-based intervention for an institutional review board (IRB). Our IRB now requires all biomedical study protocols to define racial and ethnic classifications they plan to use, to state whether they are describing or explaining differences between groups, and to provide justification for any use of racial or ethnic group variables as covariates. This antiracist IRB intervention is an example of how research institutions can help ensure the scientific validity of studies and avoid the unscientific reification of race and ethnicity as inherently biological or genetic concepts.

#6737 ESTIMATED GLOMERULAR FILTRATION RATE BY FIVE DIFFERING MEASURES, RACE, GENETIC RISK AND PREDICTION OF CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE AND MORTALITY

Abstract Background and Aims Estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR), a significant measurement of chronic kidney disease (CKD), is associated with adverse health outcomes in the general population but whether its utility differs by race and genetic risk remains unclear. The current study aims to investigate the performance of CKD staging and risk prediction in cardiovascular disease and mortality based on five eGFR measures among people of different ethnic groups and genetic background. Method In this prospective cohort study, we included 431,126 participants from the UK Biobank, deriving hazard ratios and 95% confidence intervals from multivariable adjusted Cox proportional hazards models. C statistic and net reclassification improvement (NRI) were utilized for comparing the predictive benefit of eGFR measures when added to the traditional cardiovascular risk factors. Results Over a median of 13.4 (IQR 12.7-14.9) years of follow-up, 27,757 (6.4%) participants died from any cause, of which 3272 (0.8%) died primarily from CVD. 39,522 (9.2%) incident composite CVD hospitalization and 911 (0.2%) ESRD occurred. Two new eGFR equations refitted without race provided lower estimates in Black population but higher in other ethnic backgrounds than the corresponding old ones. The relative risk of adverse outcomes was generally greater in Blacks and participants with low genetic susceptibility to impaired kidney function. The superiority of cystatin C-based eGFR measures in risk prediction did not differ by race and genetic risk. Conclusion Eliminating the use of racial categories in eGFR calculation help enhance the access to specialist care and intervention at the early stage of CKD for Black population. Cystatin C-based eGFR measures can be extensively used in risk assessment in clinical practice.

East is east … or is it? Racialization of Asian, Middle Eastern, and Pacific Islander persons.

The conventional use of racial categories in health research naturalizes "race" in problematic ways that ignore how racial categories function in service of a White-dominated racial hierarchy. In many respects, racial labels are based on geographic designations. For instance, "Asians" are from Asia. Yet, this is not always a tenable proposition. For example, Afghanistan resides in South Asia, and shares a border with China and Pakistan. Yet, people from Afghanistan are not considered Asian, but Middle Eastern, by the US Census. Furthermore, people on the west side of the Island of New Guinea are considered Asian, whereas those on the eastern side are considered Pacific Islander. In this article, we discuss the complexity of the racial labels related to people originating from Oceania and Asia, and, more specifically, those groups commonly referred to as Pacific Islander, Middle Eastern, and Asian. We begin with considerations of the aggregation fallacy. Just as the ecological fallacy refers to erroneous inferences about individuals from group data, the aggregation fallacy refers to erroneous inferences about subgroups (eg, Hmong) from group data (ie, all Asian Americans), and how these inferences can contribute to stereotypes such as the "model minority." We also examine how group averages can be influenced merely by the composition of the subgroups, and how these, in turn, can be influenced by social policies. We provide a historical overview of some of the issues facing Pacific Islander, Middle Eastern, and Asian communities, and conclude with directions for future research.

Towards the multileveled and processual conceptualisation of racialised individuals in biomedical research

In this paper, we discuss the processes of racialisation on the example of biomedical research. We argue that applying the concept of racialisation in biomedical research can be much more precise, informative and suitable than currently used categories, such as race and ethnicity. For this purpose, we construct a model of the different processes affecting and co-shaping the racialisation of an individual, and consider these in relation to biomedical research, particularly to studies on hypertension. We finish with a discussion on the potential application of our proposition to institutional guidelines on the use of racial categories in biomedical research.

From Race to Racism: Teaching a Tool to Critically Appraise the Use of Race in Medical Research.

IntroductionDespite the ubiquitous use of race within scientific literature, medical trainees are not taught how to critically appraise the use of racial categories. We developed a tool to appraise the use of race in medical literature and a workshop to teach this approach.MethodsThird-year medical students and second- and third-year residents participated in workshops between 2015 and 2018. We evaluated our UME workshop with a postworkshop survey. We evaluated our GME workshop with a pretest, immediate posttest, and 6-month posttest on self-assessed knowledge, skills, and use of the Critical Appraisal of Race in Medical Literature (CARMeL) tool in subsequent journal clubs.ResultsWe delivered this workshop to 560 students and 82 residents. Of the initial 140-student cohort evaluating the workshop, 99 (71% response rate) highly rated clarity of presentation, quality of teaching, and quality of slides. Of PGY 2 and PGY 3 residents, 67 (82% response rate) rated the workshop greater than 4.5 out of 5 on quality, clarity, and appropriateness of content. Residents had significant improvements in self-assessed knowledge and skills immediately after the session and 6 months later. Of residents, 74% reported using the CARMeL tool in subsequent presentations.DiscussionWe designed the CARMeL tool and a workshop to teach it. Trainees rated this workshop as useful, with the majority of residents later applying the tool. Limitations included a lack of objective assessment of knowledge acquisition. We recommend that institutions invest time in faculty development and pair new faculty with those experienced in anti-oppressive facilitation.

The Puzzling Persistence of Racial Inequality in Canada

AbstractThis article examines the failure of Canadian public policy in addressing racial economic inequality directly. Our analysis contends that Canada's key policy regimes were established in the postwar era, when approximately 96 per cent of Canadians were of European descent. As a result, the frameworks, problem definitions and policy tools inherited from that era were never intended to mitigate racial economic inequality. Moreover, this policy inheritance was deeply shaped by liberal universalism, which rejected racial distinctions in law and policy. These norms were carried forward into the more racially diverse Canada of today, where they have steered attention away from the use of racial categories in policy design. As a result, racial inequality was not a central priority during major policy reforms to core policy regimes in recent decades. In theoretical terms, our analysis contributes to Canadian Political Development through a sustained consideration of the intersecting roles of ideational frameworks, path dependency and policy inertia.

Cécité partielle

While France is largely considered a “colorblind” society, which hinders any public use of racial categories, this article explores the case of international procedure, arguing that it constitutes an exception to institutional colorblindness in the French context. Racial categories are not only explicitly used on a daily basis by adoption professionals, but their use is also officially encouraged, yet in an ambiguous way. In this regard, adoption procedures operate as a moment of color consciousness for many adoptive parents. By focusing on this particular case study, the article aims more generally to unpack the stakes of the taboo surrounding race in France.*Full article in French

Race, ethnicity, and racism in the nutrition literature: an update for 2020

ABSTRACTSocial disparities in the US and elsewhere have been terribly highlighted by the current COVID-19 pandemic but also an outbreak of state-sponsored violence. The field of nutrition, like other areas of science, has commonly used ‘race’ to describe research participants and populations, without the recognition that race is a social, not a biologic, construct. We review the limitations of classifying participants by race, and recommend a series of steps for authors, researchers and policymakers to consider when producing and reading the nutrition literature. We recommend that biomedical researchers, especially those in the field of nutrition, abandon the use of racial categories to explain biologic phenomena but instead rely on a more comprehensive framework of ethnicity; that authors consider not just race and ethnicity but many social determinants of health, including experienced racism; that race and ethnicity not be conflated; that dietary pattern descriptions inform ethnicity descriptions; and that depersonalizating language be avoided.

Licensing Citizenship: Anti-Blackness, Identification Documents, and Transgender Studies

This essay argues that the use of racial categories on identification documents is a critical piece of transgender history. By tracing the development of driver’s licenses as part of a Progressive Era racial project, this essay contends that the discourse of licenses as measures of fitness and citizenship was constructed partly in response to the supposed recklessness of “Negro” drivers. Thus driver’s licenses as tools to regulate mobility are embedded in anti-Black criminalization projects. In addition, African Americans protested racial designations on driver’s licenses, correctly anticipating that licenses would take on extraordinary status as a racialized identification document. Therefore, when transgender people argue against gender designations on driver’s licenses and other identification papers, they build off work begun by Black activists in the 1930s. Without making a fallacious analogy between race and gender, this essay argues that transgender theories of administrative violence must be rearticulated in light of the anti-Black origins of these commonplace identification documents, a rearticulation that trans and antiracist activists have already begun.

To Be or Not to Be (Black or Multiracial or White)

Culture shapes the meaning of race and, consequently, who is placed into which racial categories. Three experiments conducted in the United States and Brazil illustrated the cultural nature of racial categorization. In Experiment 1, a target’s racial ancestry influenced Americans’ categorizations but had no impact on Brazilians’ categorizations. Experiment 2 showed cultural differences in the reliance on two phenotypic cues to race; Brazilians’ categorizations were more strongly determined by skin tone than were Americans’ categorizations, and Americans’ categorizations were more strongly determined by other facial features compared to Brazilians' categorizations. Experiment 3 demonstrated cultural differences in the motivated use of racial categories. When the racial hierarchy was threatened, only Americans more strictly enforced the Black–White racial boundary. Cultural forces shape the conceptual, perceptual, and ideological construal of racial categories.

Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications of Personalized Genomic Medicine Research: Current Literature and Suggestions for the Future

This review identifies the prominent topics in the literature pertaining to the ethical, legal, and social issues (ELSI) raised by research investigating personalized genomic medicine (PGM). The abstracts of 953 articles extracted from scholarly databases and published during a 5-year period (2008-2012) were reviewed. A total of 299 articles met our research criteria and were organized thematically to assess the representation of ELSI issues for stakeholders, health specialties, journals, and empirical studies. ELSI analyses were published in both scientific and ethics journals. Investigational research comprised 45% of the literature reviewed (135 articles) and the remaining 55% (164 articles) comprised normative analyses. Traditional ELSI concerns dominated the discourse including discussions about disclosure of research results. In fact, there was a dramatic increase in the number of articles focused on the disclosure of research results and incidental findings to research participants. Few papers focused on particular disorders, the use of racial categories in research, international communities, or special populations (e.g., adolescents, elderly patients, or ethnic groups). Considering that strategies in personalized medicine increasingly target individuals' unique health conditions, environments, and ancestries, further analysis is needed on how ELSI scholarship can better serve the increasingly global, interdisciplinary, and diverse PGM research community.

Asians—a Doping-Friendly Race? Antidoping Research and Popular Discourse on Race in the Postgenomic Era

There has been a growing concern about a new way of thinking about race in genomics. STS scholars have tried to make sense of the ways race came to be a part of the scientific, medical, and legal fields in the name of genomics. This article adds to this STS literature on race and genomics with an analysis of antidoping science, a circuit of knowledge making that reifies race in terms of genomics but that thus far has been ignored by STS scholars. By engaging with the STS perspective on genomics and race, in this article I examine how antidoping regulatory knowledge on doping markers travels and how its operations are carried out both inside and outside this regulatory science. This study traces knowledge making about steroid doping regulations and its journey through the media and cyberspace, thus showing that regulatory efforts against doping were incidentally linked to the shaping of the idea of race in relation to genomics and personalized medicine, and especially that of Asian race. While the regulations, recommendations, and debates on the use of race in terms of genomics focused on biomedical research and practice, antidoping scientists are regulatory scientists on the periphery of biomedicine. Antidoping scientists did not, then, engage with debates on the use of racial categories when applying concepts of personalized medicine and pharmacogenomic studies in biomedicine. They used racial categories in their studies of the UGT2B17 gene without concern, and their research reinforced the shaping of racialist discourses on the idea of Asians as a doping-friendly race in the media and cyberspace. This case study suggests that, to improve academic and political intervention on race and genomics, STS scholars should expand their studies into peripheral disciplines of biomedicine such as antidoping science and other human regulatory sciences.

Risky cultures to risky genes: The racialised discursive construction of south Asian genetic diabetes risk

Type 2 diabetes within UK South Asian populations has increasingly become the focus of health science discourse. Growing rates across the globe have been a public health concern for a number of decades. Diabetes discourse has focused on lifestyle and a generalized idea of “cultural” factors as contributory factors. These have become part of what I identify as a South Asian diabetes “risk-package.” This risk formulation is extended to an additional genetic discourse which generates new causal explanations for this heightened “risk.” South Asian groups are already the subject of discursive, racialized risk constructions, which positions them as active owners of “risky culture.” The mobilization of genetic arguments repositions them as additionally passive owners of “risky genes.” I argue that the use of racial categories in genetic diabetes science, despite the relative uncertainty and ambiguity of scientific knowledge claims, is problematic and requires critical re-situating.

Race, Market Constraints, and the Housing Crisis: A Problem of Embeddedness

Explanations for the US subprime loan crisis fail to acknowledge the high concentration of unsustainable mortgage products in predominantly nonwhite neighborhoods. Using Sacramento, California, as a case study, this article places the housing crisis within the historical context of housing discrimination, demonstrating how market preconditions were manipulated through the use of racial categories—a process that fuses race with economic action. This sorting of individuals based on racialized criteria secured market privilege and position for selected groups while encouraging group closure. Such historically rooted and racialized credit lending policies left segregated neighborhoods highly vulnerable to subprime lending and foreclosure. The existence of a dual credit market calls attention to the presence of such race-based rules for market conduct and access. By extending Granovetter’s claim that economic action remains embedded in social relations to include race relations, this article argues that the housing crisis in Sacramento is a problem of embeddedness.

Persisting problems related to race and ethnicity in public health and epidemiology research

A recent and comprehensive review of the use of race and ethnicity in research that address health disparities in epidemiology and public health is provided. First it is described the theoretical basis upon which race and ethnicity differ drawing from previous work in anthropology, social science and public health. Second, it is presented a review of 280 articles published in high impacts factor journals in regards to public health and epidemiology from 2009-2011. An analytical grid enabled the examination of conceptual, theoretical and methodological questions related to the use of both concepts. The majority of articles reviewed were grounded in a theoretical framework and provided interpretations from various models. However, key problems identified include a) a failure from researchers to differentiate between the concepts of race and ethnicity; b) an inappropriate use of racial categories to ascribe ethnicity; c) a lack of transparency in the methods used to assess both concepts; and d) failure to address limits associated with the construction of racial or ethnic taxonomies and their use. In conclusion, future studies examining health disparities should clearly establish the distinction between race and ethnicity, develop theoretically driven research and address specific questions about the relationships between race, ethnicity and health. One argue that one way to think about ethnicity, race and health is to dichotomize research into two sets of questions about the relationship between human diversity and health.

The justifiability of racial classification and generalizations in contemporary clinical and research practice

This paper argues that racial classification and generalization may sometimes be justified in clinical treatment and research, in part to ensure better outcomes for the individual patients subject to such classification and generalization; in part to enable medicine to eliminate the need for racial categories. But race must be used carefully and sparingly because of the risk to the individual patient of overgeneralization, and the risk to society of reinforcing a false understanding of race as a biological category. Even if the use of racial categories in biomedical research subverts rather than reinforces those categories, that research may well lead to the recognition of non-racial, genetically based groups, which will be susceptible to harmful, if less invidious, stereotyping.

Race Specific Patents, Commercialization, and Intellectual Property Policy

This Article examines the phenomenon of 'race specific patents,' defined as patented inventions for which the claims or the disclosure is written using racial categories. Motivated by the grant of a patent in 2002 to a hypertension drug designed for used by 'black patients,' as expressly stated in the patent claims, the study looks at race specific patents in several areas, including patents for pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, toys, and devices for determining personal identity. After cataloguing the over a thousand patents that were discovered, the author presents an analysis of the use of racial categories in patent law that focuses on both the normative bases for intellectual property and normative treatment of racial categories. Specifically, the Article juxtaposes an incentive theory, market theory, and cultural theory of intellectual property with liberal and critical theories of race to delineate six normative positions to guide the policy treatment of racial categories in patent law. The author advocates a critical cultural theory of patent law that would justify the use of racial categories if patent law is used to affirmatively empower subordinated groups. Applying this position to the patents catalogued in the first part of the paper, the author proposes three policy reforms for the treatment of racial categories in patent law: (1) the categorical exclusion of racial categories from patent claims: (2) the exclusion of race as a factor in the nonobviousness analysis; and (3) the affirmative use of race as a factor in the beneficial utility analysis.