As a labor economist I’ve long been interested in the question of what makes some individuals more susceptible to adverse outcomes than others. Everyone has “bad luck” from time to time. It’s not that uncommon to lose a job, suffer an injury, experience a natural disaster, or lose a family member, but the long-term consequences of those unfortunate events vary significantly across individuals. Susceptibility and its converse, resilience, are rooted in individual traits and in the characteristics of the communities in which individuals live.
Two articles that focus on questions of susceptibility recently caught my attention. The first is a visually fascinating piece in the New York Times that summarizes research conducted by the Equality of Opportunity Project on the relative importance of race and childhood environment in predicting well-being later in life. The second article reports on awards for cutting-edge research on genetic susceptibility to toxic exposures.
The findings of the Equality of Opportunity Project are stark and dispel some commonly held beliefs about race and class. Among the many statistics reported (drawn from rich, high-quality data on millions of individuals): 21 percent of black boys who grew up in families in the top 5th of the income distribution had incomes in the bottom 5th of the income distribution while in their 30s. The comparable percentage for white boys? 10 percent. On the other end, 48 percent of black boys who grew up in the bottom 5th of the income distribution remained in that part of the distribution as adults compared to 31 percent of white boys. These differences in income mobility are not apparent between black and white girls. Thus, while this research shows that family income (class) in childhood certainly matters, it also demonstrates with incredibly powerful data the persistent effects of racial injustice, especially on black boys.
Bioscientists are thinking hard about suceptibility too: How do our genetics make some of us more susceptible to toxicological injury than others? Each year, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) awards grant money to a set of individuals in the early-stages of their research careers. This year, the Outstanding New Environmental Scientist (ONES) Awards were given to five researchers who are all studying varying aspects of susceptibility:
- The genomic biomarkers of toxin-induced cancer
- The role of selenoproteins in protecting against arsenic-induced diabetes
- The role of environmental exposures in explaining the 3x rate of triple-negative breast cancer among black women
- The link between respiratory syncytial virus disease in infants and impaired antioxidant responses in pregnant mothers exposed to particulate matter
- Whether DNA variants increase susceptibility to ozone-induced damages to lung functioning
As my Praedicat colleagues and I have written about in previous blogs, this research on the interaction between genetics and environmental exposure in causing disease may help future plaintiffs solve one of the most vexing problems they face in court: Proving that their injury was most likely caused by a specific toxic exposure and not something else.
Take the case of arsenic exposure and type II diabetes. There are many factors that elevate an individual’s risk of type II diabetes. Convincing a jury that arsenic was the cause, though, might become a bit easier if research shows that selenoproteins protect against arsenic-induced diabetes and the plaintiff lacks this protection (or, in other words, is particularly susceptible to arsenic-induced diabetes).
At Praedicat, we believe that the next major mass litigation event is likely to involve a population of individuals who can demonstrate they suffer from a truly signaturous disease (as in asbestos and mesothelioma) or are especially susceptible to the harmful effects of a specific toxic exposure. To date genetic evidence has typically favored the defense (showing a lack of genetic susceptibility), but the enormous volume of research focused on susceptibility suggests to us that it’s only a matter of time before a demonstrably susceptible population drives a major mass litigation event.
Black boys raised in America, even in the wealthiest families and living in some of the most well-to-do neighborhoods, still earn less in adulthood than white boys with similar backgrounds, according to a sweeping new study that traced the lives of millions of children.