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

Nature Genetics volume 55, pages 895–900 (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.

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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 55, 895–900 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41588-023-01394-y

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