Specifically we suggest that there is a complex association between knowledge of human genetic variation, beliefs about race and genetics, and use of race in clinical decision making processes.
Currently however, race and ethnicity serve as proxies for factors we are only beginning to understand about the relationships between genetic variation and health, thus in this interim, we need to deepen our understanding of health care providers understanding of race and genetic variation and use of race in their decision making.
We provide researchers with new survey measures to study physicians' explicit use of patient's race in clinical care, particularly to study health care providers' knowledge of genetic variation, beliefs about race and genetic differences and explicit use of race in clinical decision making.
The value of the RACE scale is that it has the potential to measure the use of race in clinical decision making.
While "several people" interviewed by Prof Jay "expressed the general view that ethnic considerations had influenced the policy response of the council and the police", all senior officials questioned denied race influenced their decision making.
Fortunately, these losses are confined to the relatively few states that have enacted total bans on consideration of race in governmental decision making.
We developed three measures that assess physicians' knowledge and beliefs about genetics and genetic variation and the use of race in clinical decision making.
The social frame of the racial lens permeates the clinical decision making process, is integrated both explicitly and implicitly by provider and patient, and furthers several hypotheses related to the role of race in clinical decision making.
This section of the survey included eight items (Table 3) to assess the degree to which health professionals employ race in their clinical decision making processes such as "I consider my patients' race when making decisions about which medications to prescribe".
Thus, it is particularly important to study how physicians and other health professionals interpret and utilize race in their clinical decision making.
