National Minorities

Ethnoculture
By Mary Anne Winslow

The problem of segregation and racism remains real and vital for every country in the world as in every country there are representatives of different nations who struggle to share and enjoy the same rights as native population does. The reason for segregation and racism is not the skin colour, or different culture, faith or language; it is deep in the hearts and minds of people. Usually the representatives of national minority are not able to enjoy all the privileges and benefits not because they do not have a legal right for it, but because the society itself is trying to segregate them and never miss a chance to remind them that they are strangers. National minorities face discrimination in most areas and aspects of everyday life, but in the following essay I would like particularly pay attention to the health service provided to them.

Lorraine Cullen and Simon Dyson argue that racism adversely affects the health of ethnic minority groups. Firstly it leads them to being concentrated in hazardous, alienating and unrewarding jobs which have been shown to correlate closely with ill-health for all groups. The associated poverty group affects diet, and leads to stress and stress-related illnesses such as high blood pressure. The main, major concept here is that of racism, which is the main explanation for inequalities in health amongst ethnic minorities, which will be investigated.

Secondly there is strong evidence to suggest that ethnic minorities are more likely to suffer high rates of unemployment. Rising unemployment has been linked to high suicide rates and higher levels of mortality and morbidity. The second concept within this investigation will be rates of unemployment amongst different ethnic groups, because unemployment itself is a major issue of the poorer health status of ethnic minorities.

Asians tend to occupy some of the most overcrowded and low quality housing in the country. Poor housing has been shown to lead to bronchial problems and other respiratory infections, especially among children.

Another explanation for inequalities in health outlined is the unequal access to medical care, which is experienced by some ethnic minority groups. This may be less to do with direct racism than what might be termed “institutional racism. This means that language differences may present a barrier, as may lack of access to a woman doctor for some Asian women. Some doctors may have limited knowledge of certain illnesses that affect particular ethnic groups. Mares et al. appeared to find that people from ethnic minority groups were more likely to complain of irrelevant and discriminatory treatment.

Racism also means that Black people and Asians are more likely to be attacked and subjected to abuse. A potential impact of racism is the direct experience and consequent fear of direct physical and/or verbal violence. A home office study of officially reported incidents of racial victimisation found that the rate for Asians was 50 times the rate of white people and the rate for African-Caribbean people was over 36 times that for white people. This together with a concentration of workers in hazardous industries, and poor quality/overcrowded housing in unsafe environments is a good explanation of the over-representation of black people in the category of deaths termed “Accidents, Poisonings and Violence”.