Resumo

RUDERMAN, Anahí; PASCHETTA, Carolina; GONZALEZ-JOSE, Rolando  e  RAMALLO, Virginia. ETHNIC ORIGIN AND GENETIC ANCESTRY, WHAT PLACE DO THEY HAVE IN MEDICAL PRACTICE IN ARGENTINA?. Rev Arg Antrop Biol [online]. 2020, vol.22, n.2, pp.7-8.  Epub 01-Jun-2020. ISSN 1514-7991.  http://dx.doi.org/10.24215/18536387e020.

Increasingly, biomedical research is looking at the genetic ancestry of populations with a view to its potential applications in health prevention, as well as in the treatment of population-specific diseases. The objective of this work was to investigate the training in genetics at graduate and postgraduate levels of physicians in the country, and relate it to the way of approaching concepts of population medical genetics in clinical practice. A semi-structured survey was made for professionals from Argentina. The survey was distributed to institutions of physicians of all the provinces, such as associations, schools, hospitals, forums, etc. 544 answers were gathered. 78.5% of respondents received genetics-related content in their university syllabus, this percentage being higher among young professionals. 98.5% inquire about hereditary/genetic aspects related to the disease, while 64.5% inquire about the ethnic origin. Of this group, 6.2% rely on external physical features (for example, skin color), and/or surname and/or accent to assign an ethnic origin. Those who have postgraduate training in genetics ask about the population origin of the patient to a greater extent than those who do not have this training. There is no unified criterion on how to register ancestry, geographic origin or ethnicity in medical practice. This may be due to a low relative importance attributed to these variables, from the academic training itself. Strengthening contents of population medical genetics can serve to enhance this aspect of the causes of complex diseases.

Palavras-chave : ethnicity; population genomics; precision medicine.