Ethnicity and Racism

Evidence shows that structural and institutional racism is causing poorer health outcomes for people from ethnic minority backgrounds.

Structural and institutional racism are drivers of health inequalities, with the health of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic groups negatively impacted by inaccessible healthcare, discriminatory treatment from healthcare staff, lack of inclusive health data, and fear of racist treatment from medical professionals.

A major study by The University of Manchester exposed inequalities across most ethnic minority groups, compared with white British people. The research found that:

  • people from some ethnic minority groups – particularly those belonging to Asian groups – were more likely to report poor experiences at their GP surgery.
  • the average health of 60 year olds belonging to Gypsy or Irish Traveller, Bangladeshi, Pakistani, and Arab groups was similar to that of a typical 80 year old.
  • almost all ethnic groups studied were much more likely to report insufficient support from local services to manage their health conditions and to say they lacked self-confidence in managing their health.

Although this is a longstanding problem, these racial inequalities were made clearer through the COVID-19 pandemic, where ethnic minority groups were more likely to be exposed to and infected with the virus, as well as more likely to die once infected due to barriers in receiving adequate healthcare.

These health inequalities that these communities face can also be further exacerbated by other factors such as age, poverty, gender, and disabilities.

This video from the Centre on the Dynamics of Ethnicity (CoDE) shares individual stories to illustrate how racism creates and exacerbates inequalities in health, employment and income, and how these inequalities compound over time.

Ethnicity and Racism theme lead:

Dr Omolade Femi-Ajao, Lecturer in Global Health

Case studies