The indispensability of race in medicine

Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics · 2 authors, 2 centres

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TL;DR

This narrative review argues against the complete removal of race as a variable in medicine and epidemiology, stating it is necessary to study and denounce the health effects of racism.

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This philosophical and argumentative narrative review critiques the movement to eliminate race from medicine. The authors contend that while biological race is a flawed concept, race remains an indispensable variable for understanding the health effects of multilevel racism, framed as a 'fundamental cause' of health disparities. They argue that eliminating race from medical discourse and research would hinder efforts to investigate and address these social determinants of health. The paper concludes that indiscriminate eliminativism about race is a mistake, as long as the biological effects of racism persist in societies.

STUDY TYPE

narrative_review

SPECIALTY

epidemiology

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100% · A

ORIGINAL PAPER

PMC10088754

The indispensability of race in medicine

Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics

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ABSTRACT

A movement asking to take race out of medicine is growing in the US. While we agree with the necessity to get rid of flawed assumptions about biological race that pervade automatic race correction in medical algorithms, we urge caution about insisting on a blanket eliminativism about race in medicine. If we look at racism as a fundamental cause, in the sense that this notion has been introduced in epidemiological studies by Bruce Link and Jo Phelan, we must conclude that race is indispensable to consider, investigate, and denounce the health effects of multilevel racism, and cannot be eliminated by addressing more specific risk factors in socially responsible epidemiology and clinical medicine. This does not mean that realism about human races is vindicated. While maintaining that there are no human races, we show how it is that a non-referring concept can nonetheless turn out indispensable for explaining real phenomena.

CITATION EXPORT

Ludovica Lorusso, Fabio Bacchini. The indispensability of race in medicine. Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics. (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11017-023-09622-6

AUTHORS

2 · 2 CENTRES

Ludovica Lorusso, Fabio Bacchini

1https://ror.org/052g8jq94grid.7080.f0000 0001 2296 0625Department of Social Psychology, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
2https://ror.org/01bnjbv91grid.11450.310000 0001 2097 9138Laboratory of Applied Epistemology, DADU, University of Sassari, Alghero, Italy