Sociologists also emphasize that although the contribution of genetics to racial variations in major chronic diseases is likely to be small, research on racial differences in health should seek to understand how social exposures combine with biology to affect the social distribution of disease (Williams et al.2010). However, all conclusions about the contribution of genetics should be based on explicit tests of genetic traits. In addition, researchers should pay more attention to issues of population sampling when making inferences to larger populations about observed genetic variation and to genetic variation within race, as well as, differences across racial groups. Most importantly, sociologists and other social scientists need to devote more concerted and systematic attention to developing valid and reliable measures of the relevant aspects of the social environment for the study of gene-environment interactions.
