Will precision medicine move us beyond race?

Health care providers have long struggled with the utility of race in the prescribing and dosing of medications. It is widely accepted that self-identified race often correlates with geographical ancestry, that geographical ancestry is a major determinant of genomic variation, and that genomic variation can influence reactions to drugs. The challenge for clinicians, however, is that self-identified race does not predict the genotype or drug response of an individual patient. Prescribing medications on the basis of race oversimplifies the complexities and interplay of ancestry, health, disease, and drug response. Eventually, precision medicine may revolutionize our understanding of race and its utility (or lack thereof) in clinical practice. (author introduction) #P4HEsummit2022