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Rabay CJ, Lopez C, Streuli S, Mayes EC, Rajagopalan RM, Non AL. Clinicians' perspectives on race-specific guidelines for hypertensive treatment. Soc Sci Med 2024; 351:116938. [PMID: 38735272 DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2024.116938] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/15/2023] [Revised: 04/08/2024] [Accepted: 04/30/2024] [Indexed: 05/14/2024]
Abstract
Despite the general consensus that there is no biological basis to race, racial categorization is still used by clinicians to guide diagnosis and treatment plans for certain diseases. In medicine, race is commonly used as a rough proxy for unmeasured social, environmental, and genetic factors. The American College of Cardiology's Eighth Joint National Committee's (JNC 8) guidelines for the treatment of hypertension provide race-specific medication recommendations for Black versus non-Black patients, without strong evidence for race-specific physiological differences in drug response. Clinicians practicing family or geriatric medicine (n = 21) were shown a video of a mock hypertensive patient with genetic ancestry test results that could be viewed as discordant with their phenotype and self-identified race. After viewing the videos, we conducted in-depth interviews to examine how clinicians value and prioritize different cues about race -- namely genetic ancestry data, phenotypic appearance, and self-identified racial classifications - when making treatment decisions in the context of race-specific guidelines, particularly in situations when patients claim mixed-race or complex racial identities. Results indicate that clinicians inconsistently follow the race-specific guidelines for patients whose genetic ancestry test results do not match neatly with their self-identified race or phenotypic features. However, many clinicians also emphasized the importance of clinical experience, side effects, and other factors in their decision making. Clinicians' definitions of race, categorization of the patient's race, and prioritization of racial cues greatly varied. The existence of the race-specific guidelines clearly influences treatment decisions, even as clinicians' express uncertainty about how to incorporate consideration of a patient's genetic ancestry. In light of widespread debate about removal of race from medical diagnostics, researchers should revisit the clinical justification for maintaining these race-specific guidelines. Based on our findings and prior studies indicating a lack of convincing evidence for biological differences by race in medication response, we suggest removing race from the JNC 8 guidelines to avoid risk of perpetuating or exacerbating health disparities in hypertension.
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Affiliation(s)
- Chantal J Rabay
- Department of Anthropology, University of California San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA, 92093, USA
| | - Carolina Lopez
- Department of Anthropology, University of California San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA, 92093, USA
| | - Samantha Streuli
- Department of Anthropology, University of California San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA, 92093, USA; National Environmental Health Association, 720 S. Colorado Blvd. Suite 105A, Denver, CO, 80246-1910, USA
| | - E Carolina Mayes
- Department of Sociology, University of California, San Diego. 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA, 92093, USA; Department of Science, Technology and Innovation Studies, School of Social and Political Science, University of Edinburgh. 2.05 Old Surgeons' Hall, High School Yards, Edinburgh, EH1 1LZ, GB, UK
| | - Ramya M Rajagopalan
- Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA, 92093, USA; Center for Empathy and Technology, Sanford Institute for Empathy and Compassion, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA, 92093, USA
| | - Amy L Non
- Department of Anthropology, University of California San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA, 92093, USA.
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Berninger TJ, Rajagopalan RM, Bloss CS. Compassion and equity-focused clinical genomics training for health professional learners. J Genet Couns 2024. [PMID: 38363012 DOI: 10.1002/jgc4.1874] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/30/2022] [Revised: 01/05/2024] [Accepted: 01/30/2024] [Indexed: 02/17/2024]
Abstract
There remains an urgent need for expanded genomics training in undergraduate medical education, especially as genetic and genomic assessments become increasingly important in primary care and routine clinical practice across specialties. Physician trainees continue to report feeling poorly prepared to provide effective consultation or interpretation of genomic test results. Here we report on the development, pilot implementation, and evaluation of an elective offering for pre-clinical medical students called the Sanford Precision Health Scholars Immersive Learning Experience (PHS), which was designed leveraging genetic counseling expertise as one means to address this need. This 9-week course, piloted in Fall 2021 at UC San Diego, afforded students the opportunity to build technical skills and competencies in clinical genomics while identifying, addressing, and engaging with pervasive health disparities in genomics. Interactive exercises focused students' learning on strategies for empathic and compassionate patient interactions while supporting the application of concepts and knowledge to future practice. Upon completion of the course, participants reported increases in confidence related to skills required for clinical genomics practice. Drawing on learnings from this pilot implementation, recommendations for refining the program include deepening pedagogical engagement with ethical issues, expanding the offering to trainees across health professions, including pharmacy students, and incorporating an optional experiential learning component. Educational offerings, like PHS, that are designed with the input of genetic counseling expertise may ease pressures on the genetic counseling profession by building a more genomic-literate healthcare workforce that can better support efforts to expand access for patients.
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Affiliation(s)
- Taylor J Berninger
- Center for Empathy and Technology, T. Denny Sanford Institute for Empathy and Compassion, UC San Diego, La Jolla, California, USA
- Augustana-Sanford Genetic Counseling Graduate Program, Augustana University, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, USA
- UC San Diego Health, La Jolla, California, USA
| | - Ramya M Rajagopalan
- Center for Empathy and Technology, T. Denny Sanford Institute for Empathy and Compassion, UC San Diego, La Jolla, California, USA
- Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Longevity Science, UC San Diego, La Jolla, California, USA
| | - Cinnamon S Bloss
- Center for Empathy and Technology, T. Denny Sanford Institute for Empathy and Compassion, UC San Diego, La Jolla, California, USA
- Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Longevity Science, UC San Diego, La Jolla, California, USA
- Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, UC San Diego, La Jolla, California, USA
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Taitingfong RI, Triplett C, Vásquez VN, Rajagopalan RM, Raban R, Roberts A, Terradas G, Baumgartner B, Emerson C, Gould F, Okumu F, Schairer CE, Bossin HC, Buchman L, Campbell KJ, Clark A, Delborne J, Esvelt K, Fisher J, Friedman RM, Gronvall G, Gurfield N, Heitman E, Kofler N, Kuiken T, Kuzma J, Manrique-Saide P, Marshall JM, Montague M, Morrison AC, Opesen CC, Phelan R, Piaggio A, Quemada H, Rudenko L, Sawadogo N, Smith R, Tuten H, Ullah A, Vorsino A, Windbichler N, Akbari OS, Long K, Lavery JV, Evans SW, Tountas K, Bloss CS. Exploring the value of a global gene drive project registry. Nat Biotechnol 2023; 41:9-13. [PMID: 36522496 DOI: 10.1038/s41587-022-01591-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/23/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Riley I Taitingfong
- Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
| | - Cynthia Triplett
- Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
- Center for Empathy and Technology, Institute for Empathy and Compassion, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
| | - Váleri N Vásquez
- Energy and Resources Group, Rausser College of Natural Resources, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA
- Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, College of Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA
| | - Ramya M Rajagopalan
- Center for Empathy and Technology, Institute for Empathy and Compassion, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
- Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
| | - Robyn Raban
- School of Biological Sciences, Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
| | - Aaron Roberts
- Institute on Ethics and Policy for Innovation, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
| | - Gerard Terradas
- Department of Entomology, the Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics and the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA
| | | | - Claudia Emerson
- Institute on Ethics and Policy for Innovation, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
| | - Fred Gould
- Genetic Engineering and Society Center, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA
| | - Fredros Okumu
- Environmental Health and Ecological Science Department, Ifakara Health Institute, Ifakara, Tanzania
| | - Cynthia E Schairer
- Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
| | - Hervé C Bossin
- Medical Entomology Laboratory, William A. Robinson Polynesian Research Center, Institut Louis Malardé, Papeete, Tahiti, French Polynesia
| | - Leah Buchman
- Department of Entomology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA
| | | | - Anna Clark
- Department of Anatomy, University of Otago, Dunedin, Aotearoa New Zealand
| | - Jason Delborne
- Genetic Engineering and Society Center, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA
- Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA
| | - Kevin Esvelt
- Media Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Joshua Fisher
- Pacific Islands Fish and Wildlife Office, United States Fish and Wildlife Service, Honolulu, HI, USA
| | | | - Gigi Gronvall
- Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and Department of Environmental Health and Engineering, Baltimore, MD, USA
- Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins, Baltimore, MD, USA
| | - Nikos Gurfield
- Vector Control Program, Department of Environmental Health and Quality, County of San Diego, San Diego, CA, USA
| | - Elizabeth Heitman
- Program in Ethics in Science and Medicine, University of Texas Southwestern, Dallas, TX, USA
| | - Natalie Kofler
- Scientific Citizenship Initiative, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Todd Kuiken
- Genetic Engineering and Society Center, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA
| | - Jennifer Kuzma
- Genetic Engineering and Society Center, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA
- School of Public and International Affairs, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA
| | - Pablo Manrique-Saide
- Laboratorio para el Control Biológico de Aedes aegypti, Unidad Colaborativa de Bioensayos Entomológicos, Campus de Ciencias Biológicas y Agropecuarias, Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán, Mérida, México
| | - John M Marshall
- Divisions of Biostatistics & Epidemiology, School of Public Health, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA
- Innovative Genomics Institute, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA
| | | | - Amy C Morrison
- Department of Pathology, Microbiology, and Immunology, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA, USA
| | - Chris C Opesen
- Department of Sociology and Anthropology, School of Social Sciences, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda
| | | | - Antoinette Piaggio
- Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, Wildlife Services, United States Department of Agriculture National Wildlife Research Center, Fort Collins, CO, USA
| | - Hector Quemada
- Department of Biological Sciences, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI, USA
| | - Larisa Rudenko
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
- BioPolicy Solutions, LLC, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | | | - Robert Smith
- Science, Technology & Innovation Studies, School of Social & Political Science, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK
| | - Holly Tuten
- Illinois Natural History Survey, Prairie Research Institute, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL, USA
| | - Anika Ullah
- David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Adam Vorsino
- Pacific Islands Fish and Wildlife Office, United States Fish and Wildlife Service, Honolulu, HI, USA
| | | | - Omar S Akbari
- School of Biological Sciences, Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
| | - Kanya Long
- Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
| | - James V Lavery
- Hubert Department of Global Health, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA
- Center for Ethics, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA
| | - Sam Weiss Evans
- Program on Science, Technology & Society, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Karen Tountas
- GeneConvene Global Collaborative, Science Division, Foundation for the National Institutes of Health, North Bethesda, MD, USA
| | - Cinnamon S Bloss
- Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.
- Center for Empathy and Technology, Institute for Empathy and Compassion, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.
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Karnaze MM, Rajagopalan RM, Eyler LT, Bloss CS. Compassion as a tool for allyship and anti-racism. Front Psychol 2023; 14:1143384. [PMID: 37113123 PMCID: PMC10127679 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1143384] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/12/2023] [Accepted: 03/09/2023] [Indexed: 04/29/2023] Open
Abstract
Racist systems, policies, and institutions subvert the quality of life for minoritized individuals and groups, across all indicators, from education and employment, to health, to community safety. Reforms to address systemic racism may be accelerated with greater support from allies who identify with the dominant groups that derive advantage from such systems. Although enhancing empathy and compassion for impacted individuals and groups may foster greater allyship with and support of minoritized communities, little work to date has assessed the relationships among compassion, empathy, and allyship. After reviewing current work in the area, this perspective offers insights into the utility and specific components of a compassion-based framework that can be used to combat racism, using findings from a survey study in which we investigated the relationship between validated psychometric measures of compassion and allyship with minoritized communities. Several subdomains of compassion, as measured among individuals identifying as non-Black, correlate significantly with levels of felt allyship with Black or African American communities. These findings inform recommendations for compassion-focused research, including development and testing of interventions to promote allyship, advocacy, and solidarity with minoritized groups, and support efforts to undo longstanding structural racisms that have patterned inequality in the United States.
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Affiliation(s)
- Melissa M. Karnaze
- The Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, United States
- Center for Empathy and Technology, T. Denny Sanford Institute for Empathy and Compassion, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, United States
| | - Ramya M. Rajagopalan
- The Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, United States
- Center for Empathy and Technology, T. Denny Sanford Institute for Empathy and Compassion, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, United States
| | - Lisa T. Eyler
- Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, United States
- Center for Empathy and Compassion Training in Medical Education, T. Denny Sanford Institute for Empathy and Compassion, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, United States
| | - Cinnamon S. Bloss
- The Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, United States
- Center for Empathy and Technology, T. Denny Sanford Institute for Empathy and Compassion, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, United States
- Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, United States
- *Correspondence: Cinnamon S. Bloss,
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