Since the summer of 2023, I have been part of an interdisciplinary team that examines the way microbiome researchers use social and population descriptors for people in their analysis. In many cases, only basic information about a person is available in large datasets that are publicly available to use, or detailed information about a person is difficult to obtain during a study, thus many researchers rely on “proxy terms” to try and understand how human microbiomes are assembled and changed. Proxy terms are broad categories that group people, such as geographic area or race, but often these are too broad to be used for any meaningful analysis, especially when working with biological data.

‘Race’ is a relatively new concept used to describe social groups, and as discussed brilliantly in the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine’s report on “Use of Race, Ethnicity, and Ancestry as Population Descriptors in Genomics Research“, it has been mis-used for several hundred years to insinuate basic biological differences between people. This was done intentionally to justify discrimination all the way up to slavery, but it has been unintentionally propagated into research through the use of race as a proxy term to represent someone’s lifestyle. In recent decades, microbiome research has been trying to understand how human lives affect the microbiomes they accumulate, and similarly has sometimes incorrectly espoused the idea that vague social categories manifest as biological differences.

Our group delved in the history of race in biological science, case studies where results that implicate race led to discriminatory policy and practice, and give guidelines for selecting more specific factors to understand the social and environmental impacts on the microbiome.

I’m pleased to announce that we just had our review published in mSystems: ” Prioritizing Precision: Guidelines for the Better Use of Population Descriptors in Human Microbiome Research.” We presented this work at the 2024 Microbes and Social Equity speaker series, too, and the recording can be found here. It builds off of our collective work over the past decade.

Nicole M. Farmer, M.D.,

Amber Benezra, PhD.,

Katherine Maki, PhD.,

Sue Ishaq, PhD.,

Ariangela Kozik, PhD.,

“ Prioritizing Precision: Guidelines for the Better Use of Population Descriptors in Human Microbiome Research.“

Authors:  Nicole M. Farmer^1,2, Amber Benezra^1,3, Katherine A. Maki¹, Suzanne L. Ishaq^1,2, Ariangela J. Kozik^1,2,4,5* 

Affiliations:

¹ The Microbes and Social Equity working group, Orono, Maine, USA; ² Nova Institute for Health, Baltimore, MD; ³ Science and Technology Studies, Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, New Jersey, USA; ⁴ Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA; ⁵ Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA

Abstract

Microbiome science is a celebration of the connections between humans, our environment, and microbial organisms. We are continually learning more about our microbial fingerprint, how each microbiome may respond to identical stimuli differently, and how the quality of the environmental conditions around us influences the microorganisms we encounter and acquire. However, in this process of self-discovery, we have utilized socially constructed ideas about ourselves as biological factors, potentially obscuring the true nature of our relationships to each other, microbes, and the planet. The concept of race, which has continuously changing definitions over hundreds of years, is frequently operationalized as a proxy for biological variation and suggested to have a real impact on the microbiome. Scientists across disciplines and through decades of research have misused race as a biological determinant, resulting in falsely scientific justifications for social and political discrimination. However, concepts of race and ethnicity are highly nuanced, inconsistent, and culturally specific. Without training, microbiome researchers risk continuing to misconstrue these concepts as fixed biological factors that have direct impacts on our microbiomes and/or health. In 2023, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine released recommendations on the use of population descriptors such as race and ethnicity in genetic science. In this paper, we posit similar recommendations that can and must be translated into microbiome science to avoid re-biologizing race and that push us toward the goal of understanding the microbiome as an engine of adaptation to help us thrive in a dynamic world.