Racial/ethnic variations

Ross R, Coetzee GA, Reichardt J, et al. Does the racial-ethnic variation in prostate cancer have a hormonal basis Cancer 1995 75 1778-1882. 

In the U.S., race has been used as a proxy for a variety of physical, mental, and social dimensions. The legacy of racism still pervades society, including disparity in access to health care and in health care outcomes (see chapter by Nsiah-Jefferson, this volume). In attempting to eliminate these health disparities there have been efforts to include racial and ethnic minorities in research studies and to generate better data on racial and ethnic variations in health status. Although most policy makers and commentators believe that racial classifications in data collection and outcomes research are needed to eliminate health disparities, others believe that such policies prolong the use of a flawed concept and reify race as a pseudoscientific measure (Lee et al., 2001). 

Another important aspect of pharmacogenetics is the realization that all phar-macogenetic variations studied to date occur at different frequencies among subpopulations of different ethnic or racial origin. For instance, striking cross-ethnic... 

The health care needs of racial and ethnic groups are similar in virtually all respects, but in some cases diseases or drug responsiveness based on genotypic variation may correlate with race or ethnicity. Knowing that those variations exist, when to test for them, and when to take them into account in clinical decisions will require research directed at uncovering genotypic differences that correlate with race or ethnicity. 

The prevalence of Type-II diabetes shows a large variation among populations, depending on ethnic, racial and social factors, age and genetic determinants. Pima-Indians have a rate of 50%, Eskimos far below 1% (Bennett, 1990) and Chinese and Africans less than 0.1%, which increases with urbanization and living standard. 

Nevertheless, the debate on the biological basis of race and ethnicity and pharmacogenetics may provide a useful understanding of ethnic and racial differences. Even in this case, however, we should not ignore several important parameters such as diet, economic, environmental, and psychosocial factors. However, pharmaco-genetic studies on race and ethnicity are worthwhile because they are useful indicators of genetic variation. However, this kind of race and ethnicity classification for medical treatment could lead to discrimination [122]. 

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