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Including multiracial individuals is crucial for race, ethnicity and ancestry frameworks in genetics and genomics

Nature Genetics (2023)Cite this article

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Current ontologies of race, ethnicity and genetic ancestry rely on categorization, but have limitations — as exemplified by multiracial individuals. We argue that including these individuals will foster inclusion by better capturing complex identities, with equity benefits for the full human population.

Recent conversations in genetics and genomics research around race, ethnicity and genetic ancestry have highlighted the misalignment between (1) how society defines, labels and groups individuals; (2) how populations are categorized for research; and (3) how findings are translated to benefit human health. Current ontologies largely rely on discrete and subjective grouping of participants, such as region- or continental-level categories, but the limitations of categorization are made apparent with multiracial individuals, who are often at the intersection of genomic and societal boundaries and therefore do not easily fit into such a framework. Including multiracial individuals in conversations about race, ethnicity and ancestry provides a means to create inclusive terminology and standards that better capture complex human identities.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Annika Barber and Teresa O’Meara for their feedback on this manuscript. This work was supported in part by the National Human Genome Research Institute of the US National Institutes of Health (R35HG011944 to G.L.W.); T32HG008953 to D.O.M.).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Biomedical Ethics, Department of Pediatrics, Stanford Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA

    Daphne O. Martschenko & Jennifer L. Young

  2. Department of Cardiology, Stanford Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA

    Hannah Wand

  3. Center for Genetic Medicine, Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL, USA

    Jennifer L. Young

  4. Department of Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Genevieve L. Wojcik

Authors
  1. Daphne O. Martschenko
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  2. Hannah Wand
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  3. Jennifer L. Young
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  4. Genevieve L. Wojcik
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Genevieve L. Wojcik.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Nature Genetics thanks Stephanie Gogarten and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Martschenko, D.O., Wand, H., Young, J.L. et al. Including multiracial individuals is crucial for race, ethnicity and ancestry frameworks in genetics and genomics. Nat Genet (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41588-023-01394-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41588-023-01394-y

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