Office of Minority Health and Health Disparities, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
Ethn Dis. 2009 Autumn;19(4):473-8.
Scientific and policy debates following new genetic discoveries have been intense and emotional when they have involved questions about the causes of, and solutions for, racial and ethnic health disparities in the United States. The difference in prevalence of diseases, allele frequency and genotype frequency among racial/ethnic groups are well known. The genomic profile for a given disease could have different genetic variants for different racial/ethnic groups. Do these results indicate that we have to consider different genetic tests and different genomic medicine for different racial/ethnic groups? If we do this, what is the impact on ethnic and class disparities in health care services in the United States? Current advances in genetic medicine are very promising; however, we must consider the possible impacts of these findings on health disparities, and how genetic medicine can be extended to everyone, not just those who can pay the often high price. If genomic medicine is to be a valid and reliable technology for all citizens regardless of wealth, race, ethnicity, or other determinants of social disadvantage, public health policymakers have to consider a number of policy issues and implications.
科学和政策辩论后新的基因发现一直激烈和情绪化时，他们涉及的问题的原因，和解决方案，种族和民族健康差异在美国。疾病的流行率、等位基因频率和基因型频率的差异在不同的种族/民族群体中是众所周知的。对于给定的疾病的基因组特征可能有不同的遗传变异不同的种族/民族群体。这些结果是否表明我们必须考虑不同的基因检测和不同的基因组医学为不同的种族/民族群体？如果我们这样做，对美国的医疗服务中的种族和阶级差异有什么影响？目前，基因医学的进展非常有希望；然而，我们必须考虑这些发现对健康差异的可能影响，以及如何将基因医学扩展到每个人，而不仅仅是那些能够支付通常高昂价格的人。如果基因组医学是一个有效的和可靠的技术，所有公民无论财富、种族、民族或其他社会劣势的决定因素，公共卫生政策制定者必须考虑一些政策问题和影响。
