From Data to Harm: Exploring Ethical and Social Implications of Polygenic Scores for Social Traits

In their paper, Chapman and colleagues (2025) argue how key regulations and “data-centric” research practices neglect to address potential group harms. They utilize the case of genomic research on same-sex sexual behaviors (Ganna et al. 2019) to highlight the potential for harm to LGBTQ+ communities and the inadequacy of broad consent to anticipate research on traits that stretch the bounds of health-related research. While this and similar research on social and behavioral traits could increase understanding of gene-environment interactions, some worry findings could contribute to negative downstream effects. Indeed, the group harms that Chapman and colleagues may worry about are primarily outside of, and downstream from, the research endeavor, such as discrimination, criminalization, or eugenics.