Addressing the effect of ancestry on lung volume

Provision of healthcare should not be influenced by ethnicity, skin colour or ancestry. To avoid discrimination, all healthcare practices and procedures should be systematically examined for possible influence by racism. The interpretation of spirometry is a case in point. Predicted normal values for spirometry are based on the sex, age, height and geographic ancestry of the individual. Some argue that including geographic ancestry leads to systemic racism [1, 2]. Current spirometry reference values are dependent on geographic ancestry due to differences in body structure affecting the relationship between height and lung volume. New indices are needed to develop reference values which are independent of ancestry. https://bit.ly/3P9YCJ0