ReviewAmerican journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council2022
A biosocial return to race? A cautionary view for the postgenomic era.
Review in American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 44 citations in OpenAlex.
- A systematic review of methylome-wide associations with anxiety disorders.Translational psychiatry · 2026Pooled it
- Population epigenetics: deciphering DNA methylation diversity and its implications for health, disease, and evolution.Molecular biology and evolution · 2026Review
- Ethical Priorities Among Commercial Genomics Professionals : Survey Evidence Highlighting Diversity, Fragmented Privacy Law, and Human Rights Risks as Central Participant Concerns.Journal of bioethical inquiry · 2026Article
- Examining relationships between multifactorial health beliefs and beliefs about the social implications of genetics.Journal of health psychology · 2026Article
- MicroRNAs modify relationships between hemoglobin A1c and race and ethnicity.Diabetes research and clinical practice · 2026Article
- Beyond the genome: intergenerational inheritance through epigenetics and other pathways.Epigenomics · 2025Article
- Underrepresented populations in genomic research: a qualitative study of researchers' perspectives.BMC medical genomics · 2025Article
- Design and implementation of an action plan for justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion within the Clinical Genome Resource.American journal of human genetics · 2025Review
- Associations of Serum Perfluoroalkyl Substances and Placental Human Chorionic Gonadotropin in Early Pregnancy, Measured in the UPSIDE Study in Rochester, New York.Environmental health perspectives · 2024Article
- An integrative framework and recommendations for the study of DNA methylation in the context of race and ethnicity.Discover social science and health · 2023Review
- In medio stat virtus? A reply to Dupras.Epigenetics communications · 2023Article
- Embedded racism: Inequitable niche construction as a neglected evolutionary process affecting health.Evolution, medicine, and public health · 2023Review
- An epigenome-wide association study of insulin resistance in African Americans.Clinical epigenetics · 2022Article
- A biosocial return to race? A cautionary view for the postgenomic era.American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Recent studies demonstrating epigenetic and developmental sensitivity to early environments, as exemplified by fields like the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) and environmental epigenetics, are bringing new data and models to bear on debates about race, genetics, and society. Here, we first survey the historical prominence of models of environmental determinism in early formulations of racial thinking to illustrate how notions of direct environmental effects on bodies have been used to naturalize racial hierarchy and inequalities in the past. Next, we conduct a scoping review of postgenomic work in environmental epigenetics and DOHaD that looks at the role of race/ethnicity in human health (2000-2021). Although there is substantial heterogeneity in how race is conceptualized and interpreted across studies, we observe practices that may unwittingly encourage typological thinking, including: using DNA methylation as a novel marker of racial classification; neglect of variation and reversibility within supposedly homogenous racial groups; and a tendency to label and reify whole groups as pathologized or impaired. Even in the very different politico-economic and epistemic context of contemporary postgenomic science, these trends echo deeply held beliefs in Western thinking which claimed that different environments shape different bodies and then used this logic to argue for essential differences between Europeans and non-Europeans. We conclude with a series of suggestions on interpreting and reporting findings in these fields that we feel will help researchers harness this work to benefit disadvantaged groups while avoiding the inadvertent dissemination of new and old forms of stigma or prejudice.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.