Institutional review board staff and reviewers (and plenty of others, too) lie awake at night thinking about the ethical implications of research involving genomic data. While we all tend to worry about the identifiability of such data, genomic research can create large, population-wide considerations. Population descriptors used in genomic research can be one factor leading to health disparities and inequities in different genomic group, according to the author of this blog post at the Public Responsibility in Medicine and Research website.
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine has launched a working group to “evaluate current and future uses of population descriptors in genomic research,” according to the post.
The blog post raises many interesting points, and we hope you read it.