ABSTRACT
Race is a social invention. In genetic terms the physical or biological differences between groups defined as ‘races’ are negligible, and there has been no persuasive evidence for ascribing psychological, intellectual, or moral capacities to individuals on the basis of either skin colour or physiognomy. The existence of inequalities, not only in education, employment, and income in relation to race and ethnicity, but also in health and healthcare remains an incontrovertible fact. In the United States ‘black’ is typically understood to mean people of African ancestral origins that fall into the racial group referred to as ‘Negroid’ in the nineteenth century. In Britain the term ‘black’ has been used more broadly to refer to people of African-Caribbean and South Asian descent. While epidemiological studies comprising aggregate data on large segments of disparate populations can be misleading re-specific segments of the population, they nonetheless are of use in the planning of public health strategies.
