Race in the social-epigenomic regulation of pre- and perinatal development

Abstract Racial health disparities track with epigenetic marks such as DNA methylation. This observation provides the impetus for our research field to explore the interactions among race, external environmental factors and health. Human and animal studies contribute different sets of knowledge to this exploration. Human studies reveal that environmental factors intrinsically linked to racial self-identification associate with changes in epigenetic marks and concurrent health disparities. Animal studies demonstrate that environmental impacts modeled after human environmental factors intrinsically linked to racial self-identification produce genome wide and gene specific epigenetic changes. Moreover, animal studies also demonstrate that genetics can modulate these environmentally driven epigenetic changes. Our growing understanding in the field allows an expansion of the questions we ask when researching health disparities. By understanding that epigenetics stands as one of the final common pathways in determining health, we can include asking the “how” health disparities occur as well as the “why”.