What's in a name? Ask your genetic profile.

What exactly does the NY Times mean when they use the phrase "Black America"? I assume (I am giving benefit of doubt) that they are referring to a social or political construct. If this is indeed the case we are losing ground by not examining the variables rolled into designations "by race". There is only the human race--we do not neatly stratify based on skin color mind you. Genetic differentiation does not split us into groups. I am positive the brilliant minds at NY Times are aware. But still...

​...drug death rate is rising most steeply among blacks, with those between the ages of 45 and 64 among the hardest hit.

I have described West Virginia as having some of the largest shifts in drug death rate. In the absence of granular data beyond skin color what have we learned? To show the mere depth of ancestry and geographical data here is my 23andme ancestry data. I am biracial, "white" mother and "black" father.

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Lumping individuals based on self-identified race or ethnicity ignores our geographically sorted haplotypes and genetic data. I am actually 60% European and 38% Sub-saharan African. What is to gain by combining individuals based on a social and political construct at the expense of our real and identifiable complexity? In this emerging era of what many describe as personal-medicine--there is no room for distorted facts or misleading headlines.

​Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.--Mark Twain

In the coming year I will share a few of my data partnerships to examine a wide-variety of granular data. Let's see what can happen to our discussions around social correlates of health and community level changes directed to improving healthcare and quality of life.

It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.--Thomas Sowell (economist)

DATA in The Wild

The data sources used to generate the graphics are primarily from CDC Wide-ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research (WONDER).

The American Community Survey data has been updated with 2016 data.

Many colleagues rely on IPUMS census and survey data but think you may need more than a working knowledge of statistical files--let me know. 

You likely know how complicated survey data can be to analyze. Tableau is beta testing a new data cleaning program introduced at the conference in 2017--MAESTRO.

I am working with this dataset now that the submitted scenarios are completed.

Personal Genome Project Participant Surveys

​Stay tuned...