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Physician Knowledge of Human Genetic Variation, Beliefs About Race and Genetics, and Use of Race in Clinical Decision-making

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Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities Aims and scope Submit manuscript

A Correction to this article was published on 22 March 2019

This article has been updated

Abstract

Background

Race in the USA has an enduring connection to health and well-being. It is often used as a proxy for ancestry and genetic variation, although self-identified race does not establish genetic risk of disease for an individual patient. How physicians reconcile these seemingly paradoxical facts as they make clinical decisions is unknown.

Objective

To examine physicians’ genetic knowledge and beliefs about race with their use of race in clinical decision-making

Design

Cross-sectional survey of a national sample of clinically active general internists

Results

Seven hundred eighty-seven physicians completed the survey. Regression models indicate that genetic knowledge was not significantly associated with use of race. However, physicians who agreed with notions of race as a biological phenomenon and those who agreed that race has clinical importance were more likely to report using race in their decision-making.

Conclusions

Genomic and precision medicine holds considerable promise for narrowing the gap in health among racial groups in the USA. For this promise to be realized, our findings suggest that future research and education efforts related to race, genomics, and health must go beyond educating health care providers about common genetic conditions to delving into assumptions about race and genetics.

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Change history

  • 22 March 2019

    We discovered that two of the items in the knowledge index were incorrectly identified. We reran all the analyses and none of the major findings changed. However, we would like to correct the error since our hope is that others will use the measure.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Dr. Lisa Cooper for her assistance with earlier drafts of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Education, Health & Society, Miami University, 210 E. Spring Street, Oxford, OH, 45056, USA

    Sherrill L. Sellers

  2. Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, University of Minnesota Medical School, 717 Delaware Street Se, Rm 420, MMC 381, Minneapolis, MN, 55414, USA

    Brooke A. Cunningham

  3. Social and Behavioral Research Branch, National Human Genome Research Institute, National Institutes of Health, 31 Center Drive Room B1B37-G, Bethesda, MD, 20892, USA

    Vence L. Bonham

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  1. Sherrill L. Sellers
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Correspondence to Sherrill L. Sellers.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Sellers, S.L., Cunningham, B.A. & Bonham, V.L. Physician Knowledge of Human Genetic Variation, Beliefs About Race and Genetics, and Use of Race in Clinical Decision-making. J. Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities 6, 110–116 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40615-018-0505-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40615-018-0505-y

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