July 13, 2004

Researchers from three local higher education institutions, including the University of Houston, will explore Indian Americans’ perspectives on health, illness, disease and genetic research as part of a three-year ethnographic study.

“We’re looking at how Indian Americans view human genetic research and how information from the Human Genome Project might influence their beliefs regarding their own racial and ethnic identity,” said Janis Hutchinson, UH associate professor of anthropology.

Hutchinson will join Deanna Guidry, her research assistant, and Deepa Reddy, assistant professor of anthropology at UH-Clear Lake, and Richard Sharp, assistant professor of medicine at Baylor College of Medicine’s Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy and principal investigator, to conduct the study.

The study, titled “Indian and Hindu Perspectives on Genetic Variation Research,” will consist of one-on-one interviews with Indian Americans, as well as 25 focus groups. Researchers expect to work with more than 400 people during the course of the study.

Researchers also plan to establish working and advisory groups to assist in the development of educational materials for the International HapMap Project (HAPMAP). HAPMAP is an effort to identify genes that affect health and various diseases, such as diabetes, cancer, stroke and heart disease, and study responses to drugs and environmental factors.

The study is funded by a $1,052,180 grant from the National Human Genome Research Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The study is part of a larger NIH initiative to better understand public attitudes about genetics and genetic research, especially in light of the Human Genome Project. The project, completed in April 2003, was an international research effort to sequence and map all human genes, providing a genetic blueprint.

Francine Parker
fparker@central.uh.edu