terms for quality - race and ethnicity

[Melanie Courtot]

Dear all,

A list of terms has been created for submission to PATO http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=phyoyF8FhymnarQ84Cc6GZQ&hl=en

Chris and Georgios also have access to the document to provide early feedback.

One arising question is about the terms race and ethnicity, and we would like to have your opinion, Barry, to sort these out. See below for previous comments on these terms.

Other inputs are of course welcome!

Thanks,
Melanie

Comments made by Susanna:
'race' and 'ethnicity' are an issue indeed, as apparently the definitions for these terms change according to US regulations (Liju know more about it- I am cc to her here).

Comments made by Helen:
I suppose that the definitions from the US need not be actually included
in OBI or in PATO, more that we should be sensitive to the issues here
and that some kind of mapping may be made if we decide to use different
labels.

We looked into this when developing MO and NCI thesarus was used as a
source of terms here as we didn't want to try and define this ourselves.
I hope that these comply with US rules. I've included these below for
the purposes of discussion:

*Ethnicity*  has now been retired by NCI

NCI|Ethnicity - an arbitrary classification of the social group a person
belongs to, and either identifies with or is identified with by others,
as a result of a complex of cultural, biological, geographical and other
factors such as linguistic, dietary and religion traditions; ancestry,
background, allegiance, or association; and physical characteristics
traditionally associated with race. Increasingly the concept is used
synonymously with race but this use trend has a pragmatic basis rather
than scientific. Also, sImilar to the concept of ethnic origin which is
an attempt to classify people, not according to their current ethnicity,
but according to where their ancestors came from. Ethnic origin has
become a popular classification in statistics, where the concept of race
has been largely discarded.

(Note Ethnic Origin is also present but retired)

*Race* is still present:

NCI|An arbitrary classification of a taxonomic group that is a division
of a species. It usually arises as a consequence of geographical
isolation within a species and is characterized by shared heredity,
physical attributes and behavior, and in the case of humans, by common
history, nationality, or geographic distribution.

and

*Ethnic Group* seems to replace Ethnicity

NCI|A social group characterized by a distinctive social and cultural
tradition that is maintained from generation to generation. They share a
common history and origin and a sense of identification with the group.
Members of the group have similar and distinctive features in their
lifestyle habits and shared experiences. They often have a common
genetic heritage which may be reflected in their experience of health
and disease.

[Alan Ruttenberg]

Perhaps we should push these in to information entities, and make clear in their definition that they refer to administrative categories about the people, but not necessarily any actual qualities of them. 

-Alan

[Liju Fan]

I totally agree with Alan. Those categories under race and ethnicity
were defined by the US OBM and are used politically. They do not
necessarily refer to any actual quality of the people.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_ethnicity_in_the_United_States_Census

Cheers,
Liju

--
Liju Fan, Ph.D.
Ontology Workshop, LLC
P.O. Box 182
Columbia, MD 21045-9998
Phone: (410) 880-8988
Mobile: (443) 745-7412
email: liju...@gmail.com

[Tina Hernandez-Boussard]

I agree. It should also be noted that these are "American"
definitions. So there is African-American, but not African.

-tina

Tina Hernandez-Boussard, PhD, MPH
300 Pasteur Drive
Grant Building RmS085A
Stanford, CA 94305-5655
Phone: (650) 725-5507
Fax: (650) 725-0791
Email: bous...@stanford.edu

[Melanie Courtot]

Hi all,

I don't think we ever came to a conclusion regarding ethnicity and
race, and how to deal with different representation depending on the
country.

Do you have further input to be exchanged via email or is it something
we want to discuss during the OBO/OBI meeting next week?

Or if there is consensus on using information entities, shall we push
the issue towards IAO?

Thanks,
Melanie

---
Mélanie Courtot
TFL- BCCRC
675 West 10th Avenue
Vancouver, BC
V5Z 1L3, Canada