Challenges and opportunities in social epigenomics and cancer

Abstract

Social epigenomics is an area of science that evaluates why and how different social factors and processes affect different components of the epigenome. As it happens with most of the new areas in science, social epigenetics being a relatively new area, only limited progress has been made. However, the potential of implicating social epigenomics in improving health and health related policies is tremendous. Epidemiologic studies evaluating social, behavior, family, and environmental factors have helped understand social inequality and develop the area of social epigenomics. Most of the information in social epidemiology has been gathered from genetic studies. Now the time has come that we may apply similar approaches in social epigenomics because technologies of determining methylation, histone, and noncoding RNA profiling are well developed. The focus of this chapter is to understand the role of epigenetic regulation in social experiences at various stages in life due to altered function of genes and affecting health in populations with different races/ethnicity. Here we discuss the current challenges and opportunities in the field.