How Do Genetic Ancestry and Race Help Us to Better Understand Health Inequalities?

Featured Speaker: Professor Amy L. Non

This lecture will focus on understanding how social experiences can become biologically embedded to affect health throughout the course of life and potentially contribute to racial disparities in health. Ongoing projects include investigation of biological embedding of stress in Latina immigrant mothers and children, microRNA in longitudinal breast milk, and racial bias in spirometry and disparities in lung function. The lecture will discuss how genetic ancestry is often conflated with race and how both are misused in understanding the basis of disease inequalities.

Presenter Biography

Amy L. Non is Associate Professor in the UCSD Department of Anthropology, specializing in genetic anthropology. Her research areas include embodiment of racial/social inequalities, epigenetics, early-life adversity, and genetic ancestry/race. Non received her BS from Brandeis University and her MPH and PhD in Anthropology from the University of Florida. She conducted postdoctoral training at Harvard University.

Coordinator: Michele Bolton