Embracing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Genetics Textbooks and Testing

I just finished revising the fourteenth edition of my college textbook, Human Genetics: Concepts and Applications. The first was published at the dawn of the human genome sequencing era, 1994. I'm accustomed to incorporating feedback from professors and updating content every 2 or 3 years, but this revision threw something new at me: the publisher asking all textbook authors to strive for DEI:

 

DIVERSITY: depicting various identities and differences
EQUITY: providing fair and equitable access and opportunity
INCLUSION: respecting and welcoming all individuals

 

Ironically, just as I finished the new edition, the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ACMG) published a "points to consider" statement in Genetics in Medicine, "Clinical, technical, and environmental biases influencing equitable access to clinical genetics/genomics testing."

 

The subtext: Textbooks shouldn't use only or mostly photos of white people, and interpreting DNA test results shouldn't be based on research done mostly on white people.

 

 

To continue reading, go to DNA Science, where this post first appeared.