On the whole, the article by Yasuda, Zhang, and Huang (2008) indeed points out an important issue: that there sometimes exist racial differences in the effects of various medications, including side effects. Furthermore, it should be stressed that racial differences in medical care also exist in a variety of other aspects. For instance, Dickson, Knafl, Wald, and Riegel (2015) mention that representatives of various races may tend have different levels of understanding of their health conditions and different rates of medication adherence; for instance, Black individuals tend to have a lower degree of understanding of such a problem as health failure, as well as worse medication adherence than White persons. Also, medics prescribe different treatments to people of different races for some reason (not due to clinical or sociodemographic characteristics) (Dickson et al., 2015); this requires further investigation (as the authors of the article point out), but should probably be kept in mind when caring for patients of different races.
The findings of both Yasuda et al. (2008) and Dickson et al. (2015) may be applied in clinical practice. The racial differences in the response to different drugs should be taken into account when prescribing medications and treatments, for instance, if the potential risk and impact of side effects may be crucial. The differences in medication adherence might be a reason to pay more attention when providing care for Black patients on medication regimens, ensuring that they take their medicines as appropriate.
References
Dickson, V. V., Knafl, G. J., Wald, J., & Riegel, B. (2015). Racial differences in clinical treatment and self‐care behaviors of adults with chronic heart failure. Journal of the American Heart Association, 4(4), e001561.
Yasuda, S. U., Zhang, L., & Huang, S.-M. (2008). The role of ethnicity in variability in response to drugs: Focus on clinical pharmacology studies. Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, 84(3), 417-423. doi:10.1038/clpt.2008.141