https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-race-matters-in-personalized-health-care/

The COVID pandemic, combined with growing support for racial justice, has brought the issue of inequity in health care to the fore. This issue is nothing new—racial and ethnic disparities have been well documented in terms of unequal medical delivery and measures of health treatment outcomes—but now is the time for the medical community to make meaningful changes and address these gaps in care.

As a woman of color in the biotech industry, I have a personal and professional interest in addressing these disparities. Furthermore, as a researcher, I have often wondered exactly what causes racial differences in disease rates and treatment response, and whether we might be able to reduce disparities and combat some diseases more effectively with a better understanding of the factors involved. Systemic racism clearly plays a major role, as do socioeconomics, environment and culture. Although race is a social rather than biological construct, there are inherited genetic variations that play a role in drug response and adverse drug reactions—and genetic variations differ among different ethnicities.