RT Book, Section A1 Yancy, Clyde W. A2 Fuster, Valentin A2 Narula, Jagat A2 Vaishnava, Prashant A2 Leon, Martin B. A2 Callans, David J. A2 Rumsfeld, John S. A2 Poppas, Athena SR Print(0) ID 1202453883 T1 Race, Ethnicity, Disparities, Diversity, and Heart Disease T2 Fuster and Hurst's The Heart, 15e YR 2022 FD 2022 PB McGraw-Hill Education PP New York, NY SN 9781264257560 LK accesscardiology.mhmedical.com/content.aspx?aid=1202453883 RD 2024/03/29 AB Chapter SummaryThis chapter defines the taxonomy and historical context of race, ethnicity, diversity, and bias and sets the root causes of disparities impacting cardiovascular disease. The epidemiology and consistently higher burden of cardiovascular disease are described according to race, ethnicity, indigenous, and immigrant status. By understanding that race is a social and not a biologic construct, the chapter suggests a more plausible reframing around genetics and ancestry. Racial and ethnic minorities experience a disproportionate burden of cardiovascular disease (see Fuster and Hurst's Central Illustration), which is strongly associated with the social condition and further amplified by subconscious bias with resultant health disparities. It has become increasingly clear that social determinants of health drive outcomes. Emerging science links life and living circumstances to an increased burden of cardiovascular risk, plausibly mediated via inflammatory pathways and subsequently yielding an increased burden of cardiovascular disease. As such, addressing the still evident race/ethnicity-based health disparities in cardiovascular disease will require a longitudinal committed and multifaceted approach that raises awareness, reduces the influence of bias, introduces more diversity in the healthcare workforce, involves more genetic discovery, targets more equity in the built environment, and roots out racism in medicine.