Advancing Racial Equity: A Framework for Federal Agencies

Advancing Racial Equity: A Framework for Federal Agencies has emerged from years of work with local and state governments across the country by Race Forward's Government Alliance on Race and Equity (GARE). This report describes the components of a racial equity approach and walks practitioners and leaders in the federal government through key actions and the challenges they will face as they embark on implementing racial equity strategies.The framework is centered on the key components of visualizing, normalizing, organizing, and operationalizing racial equity. These components form a cycle of practice and learning that should be repeated and deepened as this work gains traction and is built out. The report also includes an overview of racial equity tools that can be tailored to serve the purpose of federal agencies.It is the responsibility of government to build a stronger, deeper democracy that brings the values of equity and justice to life. There are immediate and straightforward steps that federal agencies can and should take to begin advancing racial equity. All federal public servants should feel emboldened to take up this long-term endeavor with the understanding they are joining a growing field of practice.While the challenges in achieving racial equity are great, so too are the opportunities. There is a rich body of knowledge, good practices, models, and lessons available from local and state jurisdictions to support federal agencies in taking action. By leveraging the tried-and-tested actions outlined in this report federal agencies level up outcomes for people of color while improving socioeconomic outcomes for all

Dairying, diseases and the evolution of lactase persistence in Europe

Update notice Author Correction: Dairying, diseases and the evolution of lactase persistence in Europe (Nature, (2022), 608, 7922, (336-345), 10.1038/s41586-022-05010-7) Nature, Volume 609, Issue 7927, Pages E9, 15 September 2022In European and many African, Middle Eastern and southern Asian populations, lactase persistence (LP) is the most strongly selected monogenic trait to have evolved over the past 10,000 years(1). Although the selection of LP and the consumption of prehistoric milk must be linked, considerable uncertainty remains concerning their spatiotemporal configuration and specific interactions(2,3). Here we provide detailed distributions of milk exploitation across Europe over the past 9,000 years using around 7,000 pottery fat residues from more than 550 archaeological sites. European milk use was widespread from the Neolithic period onwards but varied spatially and temporally in intensity. Notably, LP selection varying with levels of prehistoric milk exploitation is no better at explaining LP allele frequency trajectoriesthan uniform selection since the Neolithic period. In the UK Biobank(4,5) cohort of 500,000 contemporary Europeans, LP genotype was only weakly associated with milk consumption and did not show consistent associations with improved fitness or health indicators. This suggests that other reasons for the beneficial effects of LP should be considered for its rapid frequency increase. We propose that lactase non-persistent individuals consumed milk when it became available but, under conditions of famine and/or increased pathogen exposure, this was disadvantageous, driving LP selection in prehistoric Europe. Comparison of model likelihoods indicates that population fluctuations, settlement density and wild animal exploitation-proxies for these drivers-provide better explanations of LP selection than the extent of milk exploitation. These findings offer new perspectives on prehistoric milk exploitation and LP evolution.Peer reviewe