IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aph/ajpbhl/10.2105-ajph.2005.067108_6.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Stormy weather: Race, gene expression, and the science of health disparities

Author

Listed:
  • Krieger, N.

Abstract

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Krieger, N., 2005. "Stormy weather: Race, gene expression, and the science of health disparities," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 95(12), pages 2155-2160.
    • Handle: RePEc:aph:ajpbhl:10.2105/ajph.2005.067108_6
    DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2005.067108
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.2105/AJPH.2005.067108
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.2105/AJPH.2005.067108?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Hunt, Linda M. & Megyesi, Mary S., 2008. "The ambiguous meanings of the racial/ethnic categories routinely used in human genetics research," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 66(2), pages 349-361, January.
    2. Zeljko, Hrvojka Marija & Škarić-Jurić, Tatjana & Narančić, Nina Smolej & Barešić, Ana & Tomas, Željka & Petranović, Matea Zajc & Miličić, Jasna & Salihović, Marijana Peričić & Janićijević, Branka, 2013. "Age trends in prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors in Roma minority population of Croatia," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 326-336.
    3. Frank, Reanne, 2007. "What to make of it? The (Re)emergence of a biological conceptualization of race in health disparities research," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 64(10), pages 1977-1983, May.
    4. Bastos, Joao Luiz & Celeste, Roger Keller & Faerstein, Eduardo & Barros, Aluisio J.D., 2010. "Racial discrimination and health: A systematic review of scales with a focus on their psychometric properties," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 70(7), pages 1091-1099, April.
    5. Braun, Lundy & Wentz, Anna & Baker, Reuben & Richardson, Ellen & Tsai, Jennifer, 2021. "Racialized algorithms for kidney function: Erasing social experience," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 268(C).
    6. Drona P. Rasali & Brendan M. Woodruff & Fatima A. Alzyoud & Daniel Kiel & Katharine T. Schaffzin & William D. Osei & Chandra L. Ford & Shanthi Johnson, 2024. "Cross-Disciplinary Rapid Scoping Review of Structural Racial and Caste Discrimination Associated with Population Health Disparities in the 21st Century," Societies, MDPI, vol. 14(9), pages 1-24, September.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aph:ajpbhl:10.2105/ajph.2005.067108_6. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Christopher F Baum (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.apha.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.