TY  - CHAP
AB  - Purpose This chapter explores the rise in genetic approaches to health disparities at the turn of the twenty-first century.Methodology/approach Analysis of public health policies, genome project records, ethnography of project leaders and leading genetic epidemiologists, and news coverage of international projects demonstrates how the study of health disparities and genetic causes of health simultaneously took hold just as the new field of genomics and matters of racial inequality became a global priority for biomedical science and public health.Findings As the U.S. federal government created policies to implement racial inclusion standards, international genome projects seized the study race, and diseases that exhibit disparities by race. Genomic leaders made health disparities research a central feature of their science. However, recent attempts to move toward analysis of gene-environment interactions in health and disease have proven insufficient in addressing sociological contributors to health disparities. In place of in-depth analyses of environmental causes, pharmacogenomics drugs, diagnostics, and inclusion in sequencing projects have become the frontline solutions to health disparities.Originality/value The chapter argues that genetic forms of medicalization and racialization have taken hold over science and public health around the world, thereby engendering a divestment from sociological approaches that do not align with the expansion of genomic science. The chapter thus contributes to critical discussions in the social and health sciences about the fundamental processes of medicalization, racialization, and geneticization in contemporary society.
VL  - 16
SN  - 978-1-78350-581-4, 978-1-78350-568-5/1057-6290
DO  - 10.1108/S1057-629020150000016003
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1108/S1057-629020150000016003
AU  - Bliss Catherine
PY  - 2015
Y1  - 2015/01/01
TI  - Genetic Approaches to Health Disparities
T2  - Genetics, Health and Society
T3  - Advances in Medical Sociology
PB  - Emerald Group Publishing Limited
SP  - 71
EP  - 93
Y2  - 2024/04/25
ER  -