For April’s brown bag discussion, NCSD staff discussed the New York Times article, How Genetics Is Changing Our Understanding of ‘Race’, by David Reich. The article dealt with modern genetics, and how the field of study has the potential to justify racist prejudices. This idea comes from a few studies that show some races are more genetically predisposed to developing certain health problems than others. Through writing this article, the author issues a warning to the scientific community, imploring them to recon with these findings, and develop a scientific basis for arguing against racist individuals who use such findings to justify their beliefs.

Indeed, the findings of certain studies indicating genetic differences may cause certain races to be more susceptible to certain things is important and poses several issues to the field of public health and STD/HIV prevention, such as using race as a guiding tool. The field of STD/HIV prevention often uses race as an indicator to guide our work, but in doing so, does the field propagate stigma and misconceptions about certain races?

NCSD staff agreed that while using race to guide our work is vital to creating effective and lasting systems of change, it is important that we talk about health disparities among certain races with the appropriate context applied. There is always some kind of explanation as to why different races face certain social determinants of health. To avoid proliferating racist ideas, it is vital that we always contextualize determinants of health as products of societal inequities and avoid placing the blame on the populations we are hoping to serve. A variety of factors contribute to what social determinants of health people are born with, and often times it is one’s zip code, rather than their genetic code that determines their health outcomes.  It is also important that our community recognizes that we must avoid propagating prejudices and stigma through our dialogues on the health disparities faced by other populations. This issue is not just confined to populations sorted by race, but also age, gender, sexuality, and disability. Understanding how to talk about social determinants of health, whether they are influenced by genetics or not, is an important first step to comprehensively serving various underserved communities.

NCSD encourages our members to have these tough discussions with their own staff to foster a more understanding and comprehensive approach to promoting sexual health and health equity. Below you will find some useful resources to guide such a discussion.

Brown Bag Discussion Questions

How Genetics Is Changing Our Understanding of ‘Race’ – New York Time

ZNA’s the new DNA: How zip codes have drastic impacts on your health – Salon