Education and debate

Is research into ethnicity and health racist, unsound, or important science?

^a Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne NE2 4HH

Correspondence to: Professor Bhopal Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599 7400, USA rbhopal@sph.unc.edu (until 10 June 1997).

Much historical research on race, intelligence, and health was racist, unethical, and ineffective. The concepts of race and ethnicity are difficult to define but continue to be applied to the study of the health of immigrant and ethnic minority groups in the hope of advancing understanding of causes of disease. While a morass of associations has been generated, race and ethnicity in health research have seldom given fundamental new understanding of disease. Most such research is "black box epidemiology." Researchers have not overcome the many conceptual and technical problems of research into ethnicity and health. By emphasising the negative aspects of the health of ethnic minority groups, research may have damaged their social standing and deflected attention from their health priorities. Unless researchers recognise the difficulties with research into ethnicity and health and correct its weaknesses, 20th century research in this subject may suffer the . . . [Full text of this article]

	Introduction

	Research on race: a historical look

	Current views on race and ethnicity

Ethnicity

	Research into ethnicity and health

Expectations of researchers
Black box epidemiology
Is such research unsound epidemiology?
Basic errors in epidemiological studies of ethnicity

Harm from such research

	Conclusion

Summary of recommendations to improve the value of ethnicity as an epidemiological variable (from Senior and Bhopal¹⁷)

	Acknowledgements

	References

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