TY - JOUR
T1 - Comparing direct-to-consumer genetic testing services in English, Japanese, and Chinese websites
AU - Nagai, Kentaro
AU - Tanaka, Mikihito
AU - Marcon, Alessandro R.
AU - Shineha, Ryuma
AU - Tokunaga, Katsushi
AU - Caulfield, Timothy
AU - Takezawa, Yasuko
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was funded by JSPS KAKENHI grant number 16H06320, “Integrated Research into the Processes and Mechanisms of Racialization” ?principal investigator Pro-E fessor Yasuko Takezawa). We were also supported by the JST-RISTEX “Implementation and Systematization of RRI Assessment Model on Emerging Science and Technology” ?principal investigator Ryuma Shineha). We would like to express our gratitude to our colleagues, Hiroki Oota, Akio Tanabe, and Kaori Muto, for their contributions to the dis-E cussions that we had at some of our meetings. We would like to thank Lyle De Souza for his help with the editing of this paper. The coders for this project were Yang YiJing, Zhang Haoyu, and Guo Yichen. Without their work, this paper would not have materialized. The authors would like to thank Enago www .enago.jp) for English language re-E view.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Anthropological Society of Nippon.
PY - 2023
Y1 - 2023
N2 - Direct-to-consumer genetic testing (DTC-GT) has rapidly become available and affordable throughout developed countries. However, comparative research on DTC-GT services beyond Western countries has remained scarce, particularly in East Asian countries such as Japan and China. Hence, this study’s hypothesis is that although DTC-GT services in three languages might utilize the same un-derlying testing technology, such services are likely to represent the social, economic, and political characteristics of each country. For the study, a total of 267 websites (182 English, 32 Japanese, and 53 Chinese) were analyzed and coded reflexively into five categories for content analysis before interpre-tation using cluster and factor analyses. The results demonstrated variation between the three languages that reflected their respective consumer cultures: English, Chinese, and Japanese genetic testing websites focused on empowerment and ancestry; cultural values, especially familism; and health and beauty, respectively.
AB - Direct-to-consumer genetic testing (DTC-GT) has rapidly become available and affordable throughout developed countries. However, comparative research on DTC-GT services beyond Western countries has remained scarce, particularly in East Asian countries such as Japan and China. Hence, this study’s hypothesis is that although DTC-GT services in three languages might utilize the same un-derlying testing technology, such services are likely to represent the social, economic, and political characteristics of each country. For the study, a total of 267 websites (182 English, 32 Japanese, and 53 Chinese) were analyzed and coded reflexively into five categories for content analysis before interpre-tation using cluster and factor analyses. The results demonstrated variation between the three languages that reflected their respective consumer cultures: English, Chinese, and Japanese genetic testing websites focused on empowerment and ancestry; cultural values, especially familism; and health and beauty, respectively.
KW - culture
KW - direct-to-consumer genetic testing
KW - media
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U2 - 10.1537/ase.220905
DO - 10.1537/ase.220905
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85149008892
SN - 0918-7960
VL - 131
SP - 3
EP - 13
JO - Anthropological Science
JF - Anthropological Science
IS - 1
ER -