Most of the industrialized world now comprises of multi-ethnic societies, with people from widely varying ancestry, cultures, languages, and beliefs. With globalization of trade, increasing international travel, and migration, the whole world is destined to become multi-ethnic within the next twenty or thirty years. This poses huge challenges for doctors, nurses, public health practitioners, health care managers, and policy makers who have to meet legal and policy obligations to deliver health outcomes, and provide health care of equal quality and effectiveness. To achieve this, they need a so ... More

Most of the industrialized world now comprises of multi-ethnic societies, with people from widely varying ancestry, cultures, languages, and beliefs. With globalization of trade, increasing international travel, and migration, the whole world is destined to become multi-ethnic within the next twenty or thirty years. This poses huge challenges for doctors, nurses, public health practitioners, health care managers, and policy makers who have to meet legal and policy obligations to deliver health outcomes, and provide health care of equal quality and effectiveness. To achieve this, they need a solid understanding of the underlying concepts of race and ethnicity, and how these are applied to achieve better health for ethnic minority populations. They also need to have an awareness of the misuses of these concepts, particularly taking into account the history of racism that permeates many societies to this day. This book provides an introduction to these complex issues. The key concepts of race and ethnicity are explained in this book, including their uses and misuses. The strengths and weaknesses of these concepts in terms of epidemiology, policy making, health service planning, research, health care, and health promotion are illustrated. The book emphasises theory, ideas, and principles, and its aims are to help counteract the unethical and atheoretical methods often used to study ethnicity. Practical application of the theory is demonstrated through the use of examples. The conceptual frameworks of ethnicity and race required by practitioners and researchers are slightly different, including the nature of research questions, the relative value of various methods of classification, and the approach to data analysis, presentation, and interpretation, and these differences are made explicit.