From Eugenics to Genomics: A History of the Race Concept and Its Impact on Contemporary Health Disparities

The critical task of understanding and reducing health disparities has researchers looking at all possible explanations for disparities in health. Fueled by programs including Healthy People 2010 and the CDC's Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health, the search for underlying causes of these disparities is a national healthcare priority. Despite an explosion of research into the etiologies of disparities, there remains a limited literature on the impact of history on contemporary health outcomes. This talk will offer an overview of the history of the race concept in genetics in the United States during the 20th century, and the relationship between this history, the use of the variable “race” in contemporary public health genomics research, as well as its role in contemporary health disparities.

An understanding of the biological/genetic race concept in the United States during the 20th century can help public health practitioners understand the following: where did widely held beliefs about the genetic nature of racial differences come from? How did science come to justify the belief in the biological inferiority of certain racial groups? How have these ideas evolved over the course of the 20th century? Was there resistance among scientists to having their ideas about human diversity popularized in a racist way, or, did scientists themselves participate in the ways in which race became a biological concept? Who in the sciences, both natural and social, resisted racial science? And, lastly, what impact does this evolving concept of race have on understanding and researching health disparities?