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AJPH First Look, published online ahead of print Oct 27, 2005
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December 2005, Vol 95, No. 12 | American Journal of Public Health 2155-2160
© 2005 American Public Health Association
DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2005.067108

RACE, GENETICS, AND HEALTH DISPARITIES

Stormy Weather: Race, Gene Expression, and the Science of Health Disparities

Nancy Krieger, PhD

The author is with the Department of Society, Human Development and Health, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Mass.

Correspondence: Requests for reprints should be sent to Nancy Krieger, PhD, Department of Society, Human Development and Health, Harvard School of Public Health, Kresge 717, 677 Huntington Ave, Boston, MA 02115 (e-mail: nkrieger{at}hsph.harvard.edu).

In the current US political climate, conservative foundations are seeking to frame debates over determinants of racial/ethnic health disparities as a matter of "politically correct" unscientific ideology (concerning the health impacts of discrimination) vs scientific yet "politically incorrect" expertise rooted in biological facts (concerning genes).

I draw on historical and contemporary examples to place conservative polemics in context, and also highlight fundamental flaws in their arguments involving the use of spurious categories (e.g., Caucasian), logical fallacies, temporal fallacies, and an erroneous emphasis on gene frequency over gene expression. The larger goal is to strengthen development of a more critical, reflexive, and rigorous science capable of generating evidence useful for rectifying—rather than perpetuating—social disparities in health.




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