ReviewBMJ (Clinical research ed.)1997
Is research into ethnicity and health racist, unsound, or important science?
Review in BMJ (Clinical research ed.), 1997. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 63 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
63 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 353 citations in OpenAlex.
- Conceptualization, Operationalization, and Utilization of Race and Ethnicity in Major Epidemiology Journals, 1995-2018: A Systematic Review.American journal of epidemiology · 2023Pooled it
- Maternal and infant risk factors and risk indicators associated with early childhood caries in South Africa: a systematic review.BMC oral health · 2022Pooled it
- Accessing Mental Health Services: a Systematic Review and Meta-ethnography of the Experiences of South Asian Service Users in the UK.Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities · 2022Pooled it
- Systematic review and meta-analysis of ethnic differences in risks of adverse reactions to drugs used in cardiovascular medicine.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2006Pooled it
- No Ethics Needed? Towards an Ethics of Care for Public and Patient Involvement and Engagement.Health expectations : an international journal of public participation in health care and health policy · 2026Review
- A Hybrid Ecological Momentary Compassion-Focused Intervention for Enhancing Resilience in Help-Seeking Young People: Prospective Study of Baseline Characteristics in the EMIcompass Trial.JMIR formative research · 2022Article
- COVID-19 Outcomes in Minority Ethnic Groups: Do Obesity and Metabolic Risk Play a Role?Current obesity reports · 2022Review
- Discrimination in an "equal country"-a survey amongst Swedish final-year medical students.BMC medical education · 2022Article
- Explaining ethnic variations in adolescent mental health: a secondary analysis of the Millennium Cohort Study.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2022Article
- A new era: improving use of sociodemographic constructs in the analysis of pediatric cohort study data.Pediatric research · 2021Review
- Investigating the Impact of Using an Alternate Classification Method for Race and Hispanic Ethnicity on Rates of Reported Gonorrhea.Sexually transmitted diseases · 2020Article
- Cultural Influences on Complementary Feeding Beliefs amongst New Chinese Immigrant Mothers in England: A Mixed Methods Study.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2020Article
- Pathways to, and use of, sexual healthcare among Black Caribbean sexual health clinic attendees in England: evidence from cross-sectional bio-behavioural surveys.BMC health services research · 2019Article
- Article
- Inconsistency in race and ethnic classification in pharmacogenetics studies and its potential clinical implications.Pharmacogenomics and personalized medicine · 2019Article
- Exploring meanings of illness causation among those severely affected by multiple sclerosis: a comparative qualitative study of Black Caribbean and White British people.BMC palliative care · 2015Article
- Article
- Does social disadvantage over the life-course account for alcohol and tobacco use in Irish people? Birth cohort study.European journal of public health · 2014Article
- Food, home and health: the meanings of food amongst Bengali Women in London.Journal of ethnobiology and ethnomedicine · 2014Article
- Age and cancer risk: a potentially modifiable relationship.American journal of preventive medicine · 2014Article
3 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
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 same ignominious fate as that of race science in the 19th century.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.