Race and Ethnicity in Health Care

Question 1

What is culture?

Answer 1

A social construct; sets of beliefs and ideas that a defined social group draws upon in order to identify and manage the practical problems of their everyday lives
OR
Culture is an array of shared implicit mental precepts regulating understanding and behaviour

Question 2

What is ethnicity?
why shouldn’t u use ethnicity in any scientific work?

Answer 2

Ethnicity= denotes some distinctive set of cultural characteristics - eg common geographical and ancestral origins, language

• Should not use ethnicity in any scientific work, since it’s a social construct

note- other shared characteristics are used as synonyms/proxies for ethnicity (e.g. nationality, ‘race’ etc.)

Question 3

What 2 concepts does ethnicity incorporate?

Answer 3

Ethnic group - based on an individual conception of social group membership and personal identity
-SOCIAL CONSTRUCT–> used in NHS ethnic monitoring
Ethnic origin - a person’s common ancestry/place of origin ( Classification problems arise with second, third generations in Britain )

Question 4

What are the disadvantages of using ethnicity as a social construct?

Answer 4

• Assumes ethnic boundaries are fixed and clear but they are not
• Ethnic and cultural boundaries constructed and maintained by groups themselves, hence subject to change as mentalities change
• Stigmatisation/discrimination

Question 5

Define epidemiology.
What does it compare?

Answer 5

Epidemiology is the study of patterns of disease and the factors that influence the emergence & frequency of disease in a population

Question 6

How is ethnicity utilised in epidemiological studies and outline a disadvantage of this?

Answer 6

Ethnicity is used as an exposure variable to understand & address the health needs of different groups within the population.”
- Ethnic monitoring systems help the NHS to achieve an ‘equitable provision of services’

Disadvantage= social, not a scientific construction ∴ can’t be measured

Question 7

How is ‘race’ a social construct?

Answer 7

• this is as Classifications based on ‘race’ have no biological basis - They are actually social constructions that were formed before genetics
• Instead, modern genomics explains that humans are ONE species that only display variation due to historical geographical population distributions, which resulted in specific environmental genetic mutations

Question 8

Why is cultural awareness important as a Dr?

Answer 8

• Challenge stereotypes that may otherwise affect the clinical assessment of a patient
• Influence Dr’s decision and practice, e.g. dietary advice to a Hindu vegan
• Can remove institutional racism