Health Inequality and Ethnicity

Running head: HEALTH INEQUALITY AND ETHNICITY
HEALTH INEQUALITY AND ETHNICITY
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1HEALTH INEQUALITY AND ETHNICITY
Inequality in health is one of the major leading outcomes of difference in social and
economic determinant of health. The economic and social status of individual depends on their
income, employment and illiteracy rate. Impact of ethnicity is observed in the social distribution
of health which is the major issue as it is seen that individual from the low minority ethnic
background shows high level of poor health than the general population (Pickett and Wilkinson,
2015). The main focus of the essay is to examine the reasons for health inequality by
highlighting the contributing factor like ethnic, culture and race of people. Further, the essay
reflects the conceptual framework that gives a clear interpretation of the illness and health of
peoples.
Health inequality are the differences in the health status that are driven by factors like
lifestyle, wealth, education and ethnicity. In order to understand the cause of health inequalities
due to ethnicity, it is important to understand the concept of ethnicity and race. Ethnicity is the
critical determinant of the health which comprises of different culture, race, religion and
nationality. All such factors are influenced by the social and political elements of society. It also
refers to the preconisation of the population groups concentrating historical variation and
comprises of both self-identification and categorisation (World Health Organization 2017).
However, ethnicity should not be confused with race. Race is based on physical differences
which depend upon different culture and location. Ethnicity is connected with culture of people
and their religion, which is obstructed by the language barrier (Dogra and Barber 2018). It is the
biological difference among the general population. People of different ethnicity have their
respective health believe which are socially and politically influential. The racial and ethnic
identity of the individual which showcase their culture demonstrates their way of response

2HEALTH INEQUALITY AND ETHNICITY
towards the social environment that has implication for health. It is essential to evaluate the
reason behind such fact (Bolin and Kurtz 2018).
The major cause of ethnic health inequality is higher rate of poverty in terms of income,
benefit use and illiteracy. Health status of an individual depends on education, lifestyle, wealth,
discrimination and employment. The difference of such factors contributes to health inequality,
which can get transmitted generation over generation. Ethnicity has great impact on the health
care which need to be assessed by evaluating cultural attitude, linguistic barrier, poor delivery,
racism and discrimination and uptake of diverged service (Phelan and Link, 2015). In the United
Kingdom, the black and minority ethnic group suffer from massive discrimination from white
British people (Memon et al. 2016). As an impact, they also have poor health because they
cannot get asses to those health service which higher class people do. The statement is supported
by Arcaya, Arcaya and Subramanian (2015) where he has described the difference of socio-
economic status leads to the worse health condition of the low race of peoples. Due to low
income of the people, they are unable to get quality health service and cannot assess adequate
medication and treatment. All such factor, deteriorate the health of the population. Further, the
author argued by stating that major issue noticed behind the prevalence of such problems are
poverty and illiteracy.
In United Kingdom, among the ethnic groups, difference in health inequality has been
noticed in relation to the morbidity and mortality. From the national statistic of UK, rate of
mortality and morbidity has got increased to 23.5% and 34.7% in 2014 to 2017 respectively
(Aldridge et al. 2018). When compared with higher class people, rate of mortality and morbidity
is high among the lower class people who are of low race and caste. Such situation suggests
heterogeneity, which is experienced by the different ethnic and racial groups. Among them, some

3HEALTH INEQUALITY AND ETHNICITY
of the group people do well and other are lacking in accessing the health service. In the United
Kingdom, black and minority ethnic group face a high death rate and have a high prevalence of
disease and illness (Bécares 2015). Such heterogeneity observed is due to different ethnicity
which is causing severe health inequality experienced by diverged ethnic and racial group.
However, in the United Kingdom, the data on the rate of mortality is not available. The result is
evaluated by various health indicators like disease, illness, morbidity, psychological function,
distress and death. The rate of mortality is higher than the rate of morbidity in the ethnic group of
people. The major reason for such difference can be contributed by low income of the peoples
(Bray et al. 2018). It is evident from the study that higher the concentration of the income at the
upper end of the income distribution, higher is the mortality and morbidity rates in ethnic low
peoples ((Umaña-Taylor 2016). Such indicators highlight that health is multidimensional, and
the structure of ethnicity and racism difference is unstable (Umaña-Taylor 2016).
The difference in ethnicity also has a negative impact on the psychology of people. It is
evident from the research that black ethnic and minority peoples have a high proportion of
mental illness (Burns et al. 2015). The compelling reason is Racism and discrimination at the
interpersonal level. It causes violence, aggression, harassment, frustration and depression in
people (Williams and Collins 2016). Racism provides a qualified prospect for peoples and gives
an unfair benefit to them (Corrigan et al. 2017). Thus, it causes mental illness and distress in
minority ethnic groups. All such factor is connected with health inequality and disparity in equal
access to health services (Singh et al. 2017). It is evident from the study that racial and ethnic
minorities have less access to the mental health service than other group people have (Priester et
al. 2016). Due to racial discrimination, people have to face the issue of health inequality as they
do not have access to health service like higher caste and race people have. Such disparity is seen