this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2026
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Race is like the most irrelevant medical information I could imagine. Might as well ask for shoe size, or what you had for breakfast yesterday.
Could somebody ELI5 to me why Americans think itβs important to know what your genetic lineage is?
In the USA almost all medical practices use standard EMR software from a small number of vendors. Epic EMR is one popular example.
There are some valid medical reasons to know the patient's race or ethnicity, but IMO it's mostly about metrics, data harvesting, statistical analysis, etc. There is a lot of money in data, and it's cheap to store data points like race or ethnicity in a cloud database. And it's cheap to punch down on workers and make them collect it from patients.
Sometimes this data is used for studies, but that's not the prime motivating factor. Data = money. Data = job justification. Race is just one data point of many. I won't speculate on all the things they could use it for, but there is little doubt they want it. They always ask at any provider I have ever been to.
In the USA, there are a frightening number of middle layer business entities that are basically rent-seekers who drive up the cost of health care. These entities are invisible to most of our population, and they like it that way. This network of entities is very complicated and boring (which is a good way to hide evil). A couple of easy examples would include PBMs and PSAOs. Not everything they do is useless but they are also a kind of tautology: we think we need them because we already have them in place.
Lina Khan was trying to clean some of this shit up, but then the Big Stupid of 2024 happened.
Itβs actually pretty relevant. Different ~~races~~ ancestries* have different predispositions for certain diseases.
No wonder Americaβs got a problem with institutional racism if the health system is literally racist.
Edit: Iβm not denying that genetics plays a role in medical issues. My wife and I are shortsighted, kidβs shortsighted. My dad and I have ADHD, kidβs got ADHD.
But for race being so relevant I wonder nobody has ever asked my wife, any of my kids or me what race we are. And assuming a scientific relevance, which attributes define race exactly? It is the color of skin, shape of nose, the curliness of hair? Am I black if Iβm from North Africa? Am I Caucasian or Asian if Iβm from Siberia? If Iβm 1/3 black and look like it, am I black even though the other 2/3 are Caucasian?
I do genetic research. Acknowledging that there are different genetic predispositions for different genetic ancestries is not racist. It's like saying that talking about race is the same as racism.
I have definitely been asked if I'm Hispanic before for medical reasons.
you have no idea how minor the physiological difference are been ethnic groups. it's almost nothing. most of the differences are straight up racism from the past and it still kills not white people at much high rates in emergency rooms, child birth, and life threatening diagnosis, which was always the point.
edit: If this makes you mad, please, educate yourself, if you diagnose based on ethnicity, then use statistics based on that diagnose are you killing people for not being white enough to get regular treatment without assumptions. are we ignoring cancer markers in ethnicity Irish people because stats say they have diabetes at high rates? no? just people who don't have pale skin. those stats come with a 20%-30% misdiagnosed rate RIGHT NOW, you think that was better 20 years ago where the stats still are on record?
Is it? Hispanic people have a 50% higher risk of type 2 diabetes for example. Sickle cell is much higher in African American people.
Iβm happy to be corrected on this with sources though!
Hey Velma! I was procrastinating at work, when I saw your comment. We don't use race anymore within medical science. We refer to genetic ancestry based on Principal Components. It's a subtle, but extremely important distinction in science. Race is a social construct, genetic ancestry is the far better marker. So instead of Hispanic people, we'd say people of Hispanic ancestry
I really appreciate the update on the language used! Ancestry - noted :)
Well, Caucasian Europeans share more DNA with certain African black people than they do with certain other Caucasian Europeans for example. The colour of the skin is but a small factor in our make-up.
It most likely has more to do with where they live, what they eat and their socio-economic status than by how much melanin is in their skin.
Except maybe the proneness to skin cancer and other skin diseases.
Thereβs certainly exceptions like sickle cell:
https://www.realtoughlawyers.com/blogs/people-of-color-are-often-misdiagnosed
when you diagnose based on race, and you don't collect data on lesser races, and deny access to health care to lesser races, and you teach doctors how to diagnose based on race, you get REALLY SHIT STATISTICS and then you rely on those statistics to continue to justify racist medical treatment. don't worry black patient, you don't have cancer, you're black! you have diabetes! NEXT!!
Realtoughlawyers.com?
Bring some real sources, lady.
Ok :)
Do they feel pain less then white people do? because that's still taught in medical schools. Do they need to be diagnosed with diabetes instead of cancer when they have the same symptoms of white people with cancer? because not white patients get diagnosed with cancer at slower rates allowing them to die more frequently of cancer compared to white patients using EXACTLY THE ARGUMENT YOUR USING NOW
That is not the argument Iβm making.
you're out here fighting hard to keep medical intake race based. what exactly are you in favor of? Do you not know you're fighting for deeply racist medical practice in the US?
You saw me tell you Iβm happy to change my working knowledge on these things with sources and decided to just yell at me.
Sorry this is literally killing me, didn't mean to hurt the feel good for you to 'well actually the nurse should ask race at the door'. my bad bro, it just took me years to get a doctor to look at my MIR and not my skin and yeah, it took finding an African American Doctor. I guess this isn't a life or death issue for you that's literally slowed down your treatment by years, guess it's just a fun thing to well actually people about. so sorry to make you uncomfortable for a second or two
https://sh.itjust.works/post/68640729/28044112
Here's an example of what I meant.
I'm more than happy to update my layman's knowledge on this and I'm not coming at this from a place of racism.
There are certain diseases or ailments that affect people of different ancestries. I myself have an autoimmune disease that has ancestry as a component.
I promise I'm not trying to be harmful here and I'm open to education. I'm not going to give a website like realtoughlawyers.com the time of day though. There are real studies out there, real stats.
I'm not googling shit for you bro, feel free to look up misdiagnosed rates its not a secret, go ahead and Google medical racism practices in the US historic and modern, it's not a secret and it's not hard to find the info, and people like you who fight to make sure we all associate skin tone with specific diagnosis are the absolute fucking problem.
I'm not a man.
bro, you're just trolling and it's pathetic
Velma is a well-known lemming. She is being 100% serious and has been nothing but open to constructive conversation. You continuing to misgender her and call her a troll is not a good look.
You haven't seen the extent of my trolling, little lady.
That's the thing - you're attacking someone who is open to being corrected. I'm really not trolling you by asking for sources.
Yeah I famously never look things up and post sources on Lemmy. Never have I ever.