Racialized science seeks to explain human population differences in health, intelligence, education, and wealth as the consequence of immutable, biologically based differences between "racial" groups. Recent advances in the sequencing of the human genome and in an understanding of biological correlates of behavior have fueled racialized science, despite evidence that racial groups are not genetically discrete, reliably measured, or scientifically meaningful. Yet even these counterarguments often fail to take into account the origin and history of the idea of race. This article reviews the origins of the concept of race, placing the contemporary discussion of racial differences in an anthropological and historical context.

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A growing body of research illuminates the mechanisms through which racism and discrimination influence the health status of people of color. Much of the focus of this research, however, has been on individually mediated racism (i.e., acts of discrimination and racial bias committed by White individuals against people of color). Yet research literature provides numerous examples of how racism operates not just at individual levels, but also at internalized, institutional, and structural levels. A more comprehensive model of the lived experience of race is needed that considers the cumulative, interactive effects of different forms of racism on health over the lifespan. Such a model must facilitate an intersectional analysis to better understand the interaction of race with gender, socioeconomic status, geography, and other factors, and should consider the negative consequences of racism for Whites.

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