Race And Ethnicity In Public Health

In a article by the Annual Review of Anthropology, by Dressler, Oths, & Gavlee focused on race and ethnicity in public health research. Most of the research found that African Americans suffer the most health disparities compared to other ethnic/racial groups. The article stated health disparities as, “differences in morbidity, mortality, and access to health care among population groups defined by factors such as socioeconomic status, gender, residence, and race or ethnicity” (Dressler et. al 2005). The focus of the article tended to be on African Americans, I believe that the issue of the article is how research uses race and ethnicity. The article went over different models that explained why African Americans suffered the most health disparities.

In class, when we had the discussion panel, a lot of reasons and situations were mentioned as to how researchers and society can better help understand and solve issues that the article stated. This paper intends to go over some of the points that were brought up in the paper and in class, also by using other sources to provide support. The U.S. and other countries around the world are using the implications of race or ethnicity in public health research. In the article by Dressler et. al (2005), the researchers stated that a lot of literature that is published concerning public health fails to provide information as to why ethnicity or race is involved in the study. People confuse race (biological) and ethnicity (cultural) when trying to identify themselves (Sheldon & Parker, 1992). The wording or definition of race or ethnicity is not specifically stated either, which can cause confusion for participants. Some problems that occur when not specifying race or ethnicity are that it can be interpreted differently depending on the individual. The use of terms like “Asian” or “Hispanic” can

There seems to be this essentialism which is how we view a person based off their characteristics from which they are born with and categorize them into a group. This way of thinking can hinder our progression as a society, “essentialism supports scientific racism, which proposes that people can be allocated to racial groups on the basis of a shared biology, and that some racial groups are superior” (Pfeffer, 1998). As time goes on people migrate and interbreed with different populations. In the U.S. there is a, “ changing demographics in the United States make categories from even a half century ago inadequate, whatever one’s perspective on the nature of race and ethnicity” (Mays et. al, 2003). With that being said, people of more than one race or ethnicity would have to identify themselves which could be a problem. They may actually be of a certain race but because of their ethnic background that person might identify as something else. Ethnicity is often a self interpretation, in a sense that influences from daily life such as diet, environment, and culture defines the person who they are. Perhaps using race and and ethnicity correctly might be a better predictor of measuring a populations health. It could make make gathering the right information harder but if there could be a way of