Erroneous ideas about genetic ‘races’ live on in the broad, ambiguous ‘continental ancestry’ groups such as ‘Black, African’ or ‘African American’, that are used in the US Census and are ubiquitous in biomedical research. These collapse incredible amounts of diversity and erase cultural and ancestral identities. Study participants deemed not to fit within such crude buckets are often excluded from analyses, despite the fact that fewer and fewer individuals identify with a single population of origin.

One practical way forwards is to move away from having people identify themselves using only checkboxes. I am not calling for an end to the study of genetic ancestry or socio-cultural categories such as self-identified race and ethnicity. These are useful for tracking and studying equity in justice, health care, education and more. The goal is to stop conflating the two, which leads scientists and clinicians to attribute differences in health to innate biology rather than to poverty and social inequality.