Dataset Information

Views on personalized medicine: do the attitudes of African American and white prescription drug consumers differ?

ABSTRACT:

Aims

Although recent advances in pharmacogenomics are making possible the use of genetic testing to determine the best medication for patients, little is known about how patients view such procedures. The aims for this study that were developed collaboratively as part of a community-academic partnership are: (1) What are the attitudes and perceptions of prescription drug consumers concerning personalized medicine and genetic testing for drug compatibility and how do they differ between African American and white patients? (2) What are the attitudes and perceptions of patients concerning race-based prescribing and how do they differ between African American and white patients?

Methods

We conducted 6 focus groups, 2 with white participants and 4 with African American participants. Focus groups were audio-recorded, transcribed, and analyzed to ascertain common themes.

Results

Our results suggest that personalized medicine and genetic testing, though not well understood by lay persons, were considered positive advances in medicine. However, participants also voiced concerns about these advances that differed by race.

Conclusion

This study points to the need to include perspectives of at-risk communities as we move toward wider use of this technology.

SUBMITTER: De Marco M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2914357 | biostudies-literature | 2010

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Views on personalized medicine: do the attitudes of African American and white prescription drug consumers differ?

De Marco M M Cykert S S Coad N N Doost K K Schaal J J White B B Young D D Isler M R MR Corbie-Smith G G

Public health genomics 20090923 5

<h4>Aims</h4>Although recent advances in pharmacogenomics are making possible the use of genetic testing to determine the best medication for patients, little is known about how patients view such procedures. The aims for this study that were developed collaboratively as part of a community-academic partnership are: (1) What are the attitudes and perceptions of prescription drug consumers concerning personalized medicine and genetic testing for drug compatibility and how do they differ between A ...[more]

PMID: 19776555

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Project description:BackgroundStreet-based heroin injectors represent an especially vulnerable population group subject to negative health outcomes and social stigma. Effective clinical treatment and public health intervention for this population requires an understanding of their cultural environment and experiences. Social science theory and methods offer tools to understand the reasons for economic and ethnic disparities that cause individual suffering and stress at the institutional level.Methods and findingsWe used a cross-methodological approach that incorporated quantitative, clinical, and ethnographic data collected by two contemporaneous long-term San Francisco studies, one epidemiological and one ethnographic, to explore the impact of ethnicity on street-based heroin-injecting men 45 years of age or older who were self-identified as either African American or white. We triangulated our ethnographic findings by statistically examining 14 relevant epidemiological variables stratified by median age and ethnicity. We observed significant differences in social practices between self-identified African Americans and whites in our ethnographic social network sample with respect to patterns of (1) drug consumption; (2) income generation; (3) social and institutional relationships; and (4) personal health and hygiene. African Americans and whites tended to experience different structural relationships to their shared condition of addiction and poverty. Specifically, this generation of San Francisco injectors grew up as the children of poor rural to urban immigrants in an era (the late 1960s through 1970s) when industrial jobs disappeared and heroin became fashionable. This was also when violent segregated inner city youth gangs proliferated and the federal government initiated its "War on Drugs." African Americans had earlier and more negative contact with law enforcement but maintained long-term ties with their extended families. Most of the whites were expelled from their families when they began engaging in drug-related crime. These historical-structural conditions generated distinct presentations of self. Whites styled themselves as outcasts, defeated by addiction. They professed to be injecting heroin to stave off "dopesickness" rather than to seek pleasure. African Americans, in contrast, cast their physical addiction as an oppositional pursuit of autonomy and pleasure. They considered themselves to be professional outlaws and rejected any appearance of abjection. Many, but not all, of these ethnographic findings were corroborated by our epidemiological data, highlighting the variability of behaviors within ethnic categories.ConclusionsBringing quantitative and qualitative methodologies and perspectives into a collaborative dialog among cross-disciplinary researchers highlights the fact that clinical practice must go beyond simple racial or cultural categories. A clinical social science approach provides insights into how sociocultural processes are mediated by historically rooted and institutionally enforced power relations. Recognizing the logical underpinnings of ethnically specific behavioral patterns of street-based injectors is the foundation for cultural competence and for successful clinical relationships. It reduces the risk of suboptimal medical care for an exceptionally vulnerable and challenging patient population. Social science approaches can also help explain larger-scale patterns of health disparities; inform new approaches to structural and institutional-level public health initiatives; and enable clinicians to take more leadership in changing public policies that have negative health consequences.

Dataset Information

Views on personalized medicine: do the attitudes of African American and white prescription drug consumers differ?

Aims

Methods

Results

Conclusion

Publications

Views on personalized medicine: do the attitudes of African American and white prescription drug consumers differ?

Similar Datasets

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