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Role of race and ethnicity in risk assessment and health disparity Race and ethnicity do have a strong role in health disparities say researches and that has been the commonly held view for many decades. This has been most obvious in the unequal distribution of disease associated alleles, for certain recessive disorders such as sickle-cell disease or Tay-sach disease. [ 1 ]. Reports say that black smokers are ten times more likely to develop helicobacter pylori infection -- a cause of duodenal ulcers -- than white smokers. This treats skin color as a variable but it is also the result of a number of other factors say new researchers. Not only, do race and ethnicity matter, but it is also largely a matter of an individuals genome that can explain health disparities. Likewise genome-wide variation correlates with variation at specific loci associated with disease.
Self identified race or ethnicity can be associated thro genetic relationships with disease. But, the National human genome research centre says that without discounting self identified race or ethnicity, we must move beyond to get to the root causes of disease and health, be they genetic, environmental or both. Large scale studies must be one to identify reliable data for such roots causes. Now, researchers chronicle Unequal, Race-based Health Care as a reason for disparities. In nearly all statistical comparisons, African Americans top the charts, every year in most of the 10 leading causes of death although the death and disease numbers for Native Americans and Hispanic Americans also show a similar gap against the comparatively robust health of European Americans. [ 2 ] Given this history, particular caution must be employed when using the race concept in health-related research. Some people argue that the concept of human races does not exist while others for retaining the term, but only on the social basis and not in the biological realm.
Supporting this view, recently, the American Anthropological Association, the official professional organization of physical, biological, social, and cultural anthropologists and archeologists in the United States, released a statement emphasizing the social and historical construction of race. And contended that race could not be considered a valid biological classification [ 3 ] The capacity of normal humans to assimilate and adapt within another new society or culture is great. Therefore present-day inequalities between so-called "racial" groups are not consequences of their biological inheritance but products of historical and contemporary social, economic, educational, and political circumstances. Still, race continues to be used erroneously, even harmfully, as a scientific variable, particularly in biomedical research designed to explain health behavior. Its use is ubiquitous; from 1910 to 1990, race was used in 64 % of articles appearing in the American Journal of Epidemiology. Given all these studies, our health care system should emphasize less on race, colour and ethnicity whose edges are fast blurring and more on the individual.
Bibliography [ 1 ] - Francis c Collins, 2004, Nature Publishing group what we do and dont know about race, ethnicity, genetics and health, web [ 2 ] - W Michael Byrd, Linda A Clayton, An American Health Dilemma: A Medical History of African Americans and the Problem of Race, focus. hms. harvard. edu/ 2002 /March 22 2002 /healthday parities. html [ 3 ] - Sandra Soo-Jin Lee, Joanna Mountain, and Barbara A. Koenig, The Meanings of "Race" in the New Genomics: Implications for Health Disparities Research, 1 Yale Journal of Health Policy, Law & Ethics 33 - 68, 53 - 59, The Reification of Race in Health Research web
Free research essays on topics related to: biological, race and ethnicity, african americans, ethnicity, health care
Research essay sample on Race And Ethnicity African Americans
