Don’t ignore genetic data from minority populations

Geneticists have known for more than a decade that their focus on people with European ancestry exacerbates health disparities1. A 2018 analysis of studies looking for genetic variants associated with disease found that under-representation persists: 78% of study participants were of European ancestry, compared to 10% of Asian ancestry and 2% of African ancestry. Other ancestries each represented less than 1% of the total2. Several projects, such as H3Africa3, are starting to increase participation of under-represented groups, both among participants and among researchers. Large biobanks assembled in Europe and North America, combining biological samples with health-related data, also set sampling targets to increase diversity