Health researchers have long relied on demographic information to identify differences in health outcomes and understand populations that may experience disparities. As our country continues to evolve, it has become increasingly important to consider how race is used to help make health decisions. The differences we used to see by race have become far more nuanced, and health decisions need to reflect that nuance. In research terms, we say that race inadvertently acts as a proxy for other factors. However, in research practice, we often use race to guide activities – which risks embedding differences by race within clinical care.
In this talk, we propose a new approach termed “demographic conscious analysis.” In this new method, we first identify alternative variables to utilize instead of race. Part of what we propose in population conscious analysis is a set of other factors that researchers can consider using rather than relying on race. For this, we note that the same groups who have experienced health disparity are at risk of high chronic stress. As such, individuals from these groups are at risk of aging faster than the years they have lived. That provides grounding for a wide range of factors that researchers can consider. The later steps of population conscious analysis allow researchers to assess whether the new variables they include reflect the important differences between participants of different races, or whether other ideas need to be explored.
We will explore population conscious analysis as a tool to appropriately analyze race – but the same method actually works for any demographic variable that acts as a proxy for other factors. As such, we will also discuss a generalized version of population conscious analysis. Although population conscious analysis is a sophisticated concept, it relies on simple statistical tools that are included in all standard analytic software. Overall, our goal is to help researchers transition to next-generation methods that better match the rapidly evolving state of our world.
