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Doctors are supposed to practice evidence-based medicine but are still treating parents by race. Ms. Roberts discussed a few examples on doctors who have discriminated and gave unfair diagnosis and treatment procedure but there is so many times that it goes unnoticed and unchecked. For an African American man to go to the doctor’s office or hospital just to receive unjust treatment when obvious reason he is going there is to improve the quality of his health and life sets us all backwards and largens the racial disparity gap. Whether it is explicit or implicit healthcare providers are doing a major disservice to patients. Concepts such as race and ethnicity still hold weight even if not biological categories because how one is viewed in society plays a large role on what someone experiences in life. I remember learning about the Human Genome Project years ago and how fascinated I was about the genetic diversity in humans but when current medicine is still using past racist genetic beliefs to base their actions is where the problem lies.

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The Illusion of Race video had me quite irritated at the ignorance presented on Samuel Cartwright’s “scientific” explanation for American American health. I had heard of Cartwright prior to the lecture video through reading on the concept of  “drapetomania.” Cartwright was also mentioned in Dorothy Roberts’ TED Talk on his assumptions about the African American body. Roberts presented an interesting perspective but I’m concerned that the examples that she provided do not fully support the claim of  race - based medicine being a problem.

Race-based medicine is very problematic in that it perpetuates further disparities between whites and people of color. It is a distraction,  like Robert states, but there are some good idea in how we can use these concepts to go about “science" in public health. When they are not considered biological categories, the concepts of race and ethnicity  are useful in the study of health disparities research. It is important to recognize that when health disparities are related to race or ethnicity, we should pay careful attention to the impact of social of determinants of health on these populations.  Currently, there is not a lot of data collected on the evaluation of many health disparities solutions. So I feel that this is one way paying attention to the concepts of race and ethnicity is useful in health equity.

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Race and ethnicity aren't biological categories, but they are social constructs with enormous impacts on peoples' lives. More than some other fields, we do have a responsibility to make sure that our research is in the service of impacted communities, and not to treat impacted communities as an other to be examined, poked, and prodded (as in the movie about phrenology). Not only does that mean that we should be careful of our personal biases (implicit or explicit) in research, but also that we should let impacted communities set the research agenda, the terms of study in a way that is useful to that community, and provide access and power over the considerable resources we have at universities. I really appreciated the Bowleg article in that it refuses to universalize historically unjust experiences. It instead uses intersectionality as a tool to focus on people sitting at the intersection of multiple historically oppressed communities and elevates their voices, rather than using "universal" intersectionality as a tool to silence those voices.

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I think the Dr. Collins article is quite interesting. It pointed out the strength and shortfalls of two sides. It's quite important not for the Chief of NIH to be tone-deaf.
I am sure some people have already criticized Dr. Collins's suggestions for being not progressive enough or too progressive. I am interested in how researchers would stand firm with various criticisms coming from all sides.  Should you publish something that's truthful but against the trend, or should you write things that's popular in time but totally based off of lies? It reminds me of the video that we saw in class about that British scientist who changed his view after coming to the US.
In my opinion, no matter what type of research you do, researchers should always be truthful at reporting findings. Personal opinions, biases or prejudices on issues should not interfere with research.

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I was impressed by the Dorothy Robert's TED talk. Her identity as a mix of white father and black mother became a powerful disproof of the race medicine. How can you identify a person's race when you conduct a scientific prospective clinical trial when the person's blood lineage  has a lot of generic ancestries. But this tradition still play the role in today's medical science. There does need some reform in going about medicine and public health. Health care providers shall make no assumption with respect to genetic factors when doing diagnosis and therapeutic decisions. The health disparity exists not only in clinical medicine and public health areas but also obdurately indwells in all aspects of the society. It's definitely not a biological scientific problem but the socioeconomic and historical context makes the outcome and prediction for the inequities among the medical, public health and all other social fields.

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I appreciated the Collins article because it recognizes that strengths and weaknesses of both sides and suggests additional research. The reading reminded me of my work in quality measure development because we realize that there is still a lot that can be done to address disparities in care. In the past, the National Quality Forum (NQF) did not allow measure developers to adjust for sociodemographic status (SDS) factors because doing so might mask disparities in case. However, the NQF started a SDS trial period in 2015 and allowed measure developers to adjust for SDS factors and other demographic characteristics. NQF recognizes that there are significant disparities in health care quality, but we are still figuring out the ways to address it. This is similar to the conflict that Collins explained in the article because race and ethnicity might be a useful proxy for other variables, the relationship between race and health might have more emphasis than necessary. The main lesson that I've learned this week is that we have made progress, but we also have a lot more work to do.

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It bothered me to watch the Illusion of Race and Dorothy Roberts' TED Talk. It is unfortunate the the mere blackness or whiteness of one's skin has been used as biological categories to "scientifically" determine things like intelligence. There does need to be some change in how we go about doing science in public health. Health professionals should not use assumptions about genetic makeup to treat patients. Instead, careful research of genetics should be conducted. However, I do believe at this present moment, the color of one's skin is an acceptable way to approach issues of health equity. The social construct of race is directly tied to SES, social injustices, education, and much more in the U.S. Until racism and discrimination are no longer, this will continue to be the case. We will continue to see health disparities between brown/black people and white people. In various measures of morbidity and mortality, even those people of color with high levels of SES and education still have poorer health outcomes than their white counterparts with low SES and education. The issue of health equity is not just a public health problem, it is a problem that all facets of society must work to solve.

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After watching the video (The Illusion of Race) in class and the Dorothy Roberts Ted Talk (assignment),  your experience with the Implicit Bias Study, and your reading this week, what are your thoughts about how we go about doing "science" in public health or health equity?  Does our subject matter and history require a difference approach? If so, what does that look like? What is use of concepts like "race" and "ethnicity" when they are not biological categories?