Race in Epidemiology

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Abstract
The Journal has opened its pages to an important debate, taking place primarily in the United States, on the scientific merits of including race as a category in vital statistics. To begin this debate, we present a guest article by Professor Paul Stolley, chairman of the Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, a well-known authority on this subject. Responses by other leading experts in this area will be published in an upcoming issue of the Journal. The category of “race” as applied to the human species has no generally agreed upon definition and has been completely discredited by most geneticists and anthropologists. Yet racial categories are still used in epidemiological and social research, and are to be included in the 2000 U.S. Census. Because the history and life experiences of blacks and whites in the United States have been so radically different, social and economic variables have become mixed up and confused with genetic determinants. Attempts to redress historical oppression and discrimination have tended to perpetuate racial categories. It is time for a serious reexamination of the use of categories based on race.

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