Abstract
Ethnogenetic layering is a new tool to better understand the role of population substructuring (genetic, cultural, and non-genetic biological) in identifying and assessing the risks underlying children's health disparities. By focusing on groups that live in and/or have ancestral origins from one of three U.S. regions—the Chesapeake Bay area, the Carolina Coast area, or the Mississippi Delta region we have developed a strategy to collect and analyze geographical patterns of biological lineage data and microethnic affinity within an ethnohistorical framework. Regional frequencies of significant biocultural factors (in this case, exposure to environmental toxicants via insecticides) is compared with what is known about genetic and nongenetic variations in specific microethnic groups (including antioxidant variants), to develop a predictive model for hazard assessment of group susceptibilities.