DOI: 10.1159/000334717 Finding a Place for Genomics in Health Disparities Research

teams and community members as well as a reorientation of current research objectives to better align genomic discov-ery efforts with public health priorities and well-recognized barriers to fair health care delivery. Copyright © 2012 S. Karger AG, Basel Significant and pervasive differences in disease inci-dence, prevalence, morbidity, and life expectancy persist between populations within the US [1, 2] as well as among nations globally [3]. Clearly, the existence of such pro-nounced differences in health outcome is a problem of moral significance and public health urgency. A large body of research has implicated an array of nongenetic contributors, including racial discrimination, low socio-economic status, environmental hazards and exposures, psychosocial stress, reduced access to health care, poor doctor-patient communication, low levels of health lit-eracy, and cultural factors [4, 5]. The relative role that ge-netic factors play in group-level differences in health out-come has been more controversial [5, 6] , despite recogni-tion that interindividual differences in susceptibility can be relevant to health [7]. Nevertheless, there has been sig-nificant interest among genome scientists in investigat-ing genetic contributions to population health differenc