Health Inequality and Ethnicity: Social Position as a Key Determinant

This essay examines the significant role of ethnicity in shaping health inequalities, highlighting how social and economic determinants such as income, employment, and education contribute to disparities in health outcomes. It discusses how individuals from minority ethnic backgrounds often experience poorer health compared to the general population, emphasizing the importance of understanding ethnicity, race, culture, and religion as critical factors. The essay further delves into the impact of poverty, discrimination, and linguistic barriers on healthcare access, particularly in the United Kingdom, where black and minority ethnic groups face considerable discrimination and limited access to quality health services. It also addresses the psychological impact of racism, leading to mental health issues within minority ethnic communities, and underscores the need for comprehensive strategies involving education, criminal justice, and healthcare services to mitigate these inequalities and improve the well-being of all individuals.

Running head: HEALTH INEQUALITY AND ETHNICITY
HEALTH INEQUALITY AND ETHNICITY
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Author’s Note:

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

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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

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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

4HEALTH INEQUALITY AND ETHNICITY
in the minority ethnic people and higher class people. It is evident from the research conducted
in Kaiser family foundation, that the doctors have shown disrespect to the patients due to their
ethnic and race background (McKnight et al. 2017). They are less likely to use the mental health
care need provided by the community and hence minority communities have more number of
peoples with unmet mental health needs. Such disproportionate among the racial and ethnic
minorities lead to high rate of mental health issue among them.
In 2014, approx. 1.6 million people of the UK were connected to the criminal justice
system which suffers from the mental health issue like dementia and learning disability (Brown
2016). Mental health issue is connected with the criminal justice in the term of how mental ill
people can be handle who are involved in criminal justice system. It can be said that due to
discrimination people have huge distress and cause mental illness (Till, Exworth and Forrester
2015). It is evident that mental ill people encounter police than gets medical assistance and 64%
of the jails prisoners in UK have mental illness as per the statistic of Bureau of Justice (Fazel et
al. 2016). Black and minority ethnic communities have experienced mental health issues despite
of governmental policy and initiative. For the ethnic minority people, getting quality education is
always remain a problematic term. Black and minority ethnic group people have access to
various mental health care pathway in the United Kingdom considering the psychology well-
being of them. However, even though they have to undergo racial discrimination and cultural
incompetency and it is the major reason for the mental illness among them. In Asian family, the
old people always have to face the issue of family disconnectedness which lead to loneliness and
isolation. Such element often lead to mental illness. Equality And Human Right Commission
have reflected in their finding that people of the black, minority and Asian background people
are below the poverty line, they do not have good access to the education system, experience

5HEALTH INEQUALITY AND ETHNICITY
unemployment and as the result of such factor they come in contact with the criminal justice
system (McKnight et al. 2017). Hence, it often lead to the development of mental illness. In
order to reduce the incidence of mental illness, there is the need for the pathway that collaborate
education, criminal justice system and local authority and health care service. The pathway of
care was examined by utilization of WHO pathway contact form, which notes to the initial carer
then next and third pathway of contact. GP and lawyers detail the service given in the pathway.
Such measure of the pathway is used in studies of ethnic minorities of the UK. Apart from such
pathway, there is the need to educate the individual and their community about the mental health
care. It is observed that criminal justice system offers drugs and rehabilitation program for
mental illness as the pathway of care (Bryan et al. 2015). Financial support is also important to
undertake training by the professional to undertake the needs of ethnic minority mental service
users. Such people experience loneliness and isolation, which is the outcome of ethnicity (Louis
et al. 2015). In Asian family, association play significant role in dealing loneliness and isolation.
As Racism is concerned with the difference in mental health difference as acceptance of culture
and stigmatism around mental health (Slade et al. 2016).
Lastly, from the above discussion it can be said that health is the most important element
for wellbeing of individual. People with different culture, race, religion and ethnicity have to
face health disparity in current situation. The major reason behind such disparity is
discrimination and lack of access to health service as higher class people have. Such population
often have low prevalence of education and income due to which they are not aware about the
importance of health and way to access health service. It is also causing mental illness in them
(Evandrou et al. 2016). Therefore, to solve such issue in the current society, government should

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take an initiative to provide education and give employment to ethnic minority peoples with the
objective to lower the health disparity in the society and community.

7HEALTH INEQUALITY AND ETHNICITY
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