The Puerto Rican physician who led the study first learned about the paradox when he was in medical school in the late 1980s and has been inspired by and been teaching others about it ever since. “Obviously being Latino, I’ve always been interested in this. I’ve always believed in it,” said Olveen Carrasquillo, an assistant dean and professor of medicine and public health at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.

Carrasquillo’s study involved data from All of Us, the National Institutes of Health program building a database that better reflects the nation’s genetic diversity.