Prescribing Race: No Blank Scripts for Using Race and Ethnicity in Health
Issue: • Author/s: Phila Msimang
Topics: Epistemology, Metaphysics, Philosophy of Biology, Philosophy of Medicine, Philosophy of Race, Theoretical philosophy
Recent research shows that the inappropriate use of race and ethnicity in healthcare leads to poor patient outcomes. Contemporaneous work shows that accounting for inequalities caused by discrimination often requires the use of race and ethnicity as variables that are mediated in their effects by discrimination along those dimensions of identity and/or classification. This suggests that the appropriateness of using racial and ethnic group descriptors depends on context. This paper explores some contexts in which the use of racial and ethnic group descriptors may be appropriate, and the limitations thereof.…