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      Critical role of pathology and laboratory medicine in the conversation surrounding access to healthcare

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      Journal of Medical Ethics
      BMJ

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          Abstract

          Pathology and laboratory medicine are a key component of a patient’s healthcare. From academic care centres, community hospitals, to clinics across the country, pathology data are a crucial component of patient care. But for much of the modern era, pathology and laboratory medicine have been absent from health policy conversations. Though select members in the field have advocated for an enhanced presence of these specialists in policy conversations, little work has been done to thoroughly evaluate the moral and ethical obligations of the pathologist and the role they play in healthcare justice and access to care. In order to make any substantive improvements in access to care, pathology and laboratory medicine must have a seat at the table. Specifically, pathologists and laboratorians can assist in bringing about change through improving clinician test choice, continuing laboratory improvement programmes, promoting just advanced diagnostic distribution, triage testing and be good stewards of healthcare dollars, and recruiting a more robust laboratory workforce. In order to get to that point, much work has to be done in pathology education and the laboratory personnel training pipeline but there also needs to be adjustments at the system level to better involve this invaluable group of specialists in these policy conversations.

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          Most cited references11

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          The road ahead in genetics and genomics

          In celebration of the 20th anniversary of Nature Reviews Genetics, we asked 12 leading researchers to reflect on the key challenges and opportunities faced by the field of genetics and genomics. Keeping their particular research area in mind, they take stock of the current state of play and emphasize the work that remains to be done over the next few years so that, ultimately, the benefits of genetic and genomic research can be felt by everyone.
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            Is Open Access

            Equitable Participation in Biobanks: The Risks and Benefits of a “Dynamic Consent” Approach

            Participation in biobanks tends to favor certain groups—white, middle-class, more highly-educated—often to the exclusion of others, such as indigenous people, the socially-disadvantaged and the culturally and linguistically diverse. Barriers to participation, which include age, location, cultural sensitivities around human tissue, and issues of literacy and language, can influence the diversity of samples found in biobanks. This has implications for the generalizability of research findings from biobanks being able to be translated into the clinic. Dynamic Consent, which is a digital decision-support tool, could improve participants' recruitment to, and engagement with, biobanks over time and help to overcome some of the barriers to participation. However, there are also risks that it may deepen the “digital divide” by favoring those with knowledge and access to digital technologies, with the potential to decrease participant engagement in research. When applying a Dynamic Consent approach in biobanking, researchers should give particular attention to adaptations that can improve participant inclusivity, and evaluate the tool empirically, with a focus on equity-relevant outcome measures. This may help biobanks to fulfill their promise of enabling translational research that is relevant to all.
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              Is Open Access

              Addressing social determinants of noncommunicable diseases in primary care: a systematic review

              Abstract Objective To explore how primary care organizations assess and subsequently act upon the social determinants of noncommunicable diseases in their local populations. Methods For this systematic review we searched the online databases of PubMed®, MEDLINE®, Embase® and the Health Management Information Consortium from inception to 28 June 2019, along with hand-searching of references. Studies of any design that examined a primary care organization assessing social determinants of noncommunicable diseases were included. For quality assessment we used Cochrane’s tool for assessing risk of bias in non-randomized studies of interventions. We used narrative data synthesis to appraise the extent to which the assessments gathered data on the domains of the World Health Organization social determinants of health framework. Findings We identified 666 studies of which 17 were included in the review. All studies used descriptive study designs. Clinic-based and household surveys and interviews were more commonly used to assess local social determinants than population-level data. We found no examples of organizations that assessed sociopolitical drivers of noncommunicable diseases; all focused on sociodemographic factors or circumstances of daily living. Nevertheless, the resulting actions to address social determinants ranged from individual-level interventions to population-wide measures and introducing representation of primary care organizations on system-level policy and planning committees. Conclusion Our findings may help policy-makers to consider suitable approaches for assessing and addressing social determinants of health in their domestic context. More rigorous observational and experimental evidence is needed to ascertain whether measuring social determinants leads to interventions which mitigate unmet social needs and reduce health disparities.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                (View ORCID Profile)
                Journal
                Journal of Medical Ethics
                J Med Ethics
                BMJ
                0306-6800
                1473-4257
                April 16 2021
                : medethics-2021-107251
                Article
                10.1136/medethics-2021-107251
                33863832
                5fd43d2a-f353-48aa-9cdc-ca15d2e18888
                © 2021
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