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Self-Reported Race/Ethnicity In The Age Of Genomic Research: Its Potential Impact On Understanding Health Disparities, Tesfaye B. Mersha, Tilahun Abebe

Faculty Publications

This review explores the limitations of self-reported race, ethnicity, and genetic ancestry in biomedical research. Various terminologies are used to classify human differences in genomic research including race, ethnicity, and ancestry. Although race and ethnicity are related, race refers to a person’s physical appearance, such as skin color and eye color. Ethnicity, on the other hand, refers to communality in cultural heritage, language, social practice, traditions, and geopolitical factors. Genetic ancestry inferred using ancestry informative markers (AIMs) is based on genetic/genomic data. Phenotype-based race/ethnicity information and data computed using AIMs often disagree. For example, self-reporting African Americans can have drastically …