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

Abstract

Epidemiology aids health policy and planning and helps discover the laws governing health and disease. As with other sciences,1 2 3 epidemiology has been beguiled by ethnicity and race4 5 and has become racialised. Racialisation consists of the idea that race is a primary, natural, and neutral means of grouping humans and that racial groups are distinct in other ways, such as their behaviours.6 Racialism is the belief in the superiority of some races. In this paper I draw lessons from the racialised research of the 19th century, discuss the terms race and ethnicity, and analyse the value of and problems with research into ethnicity and health.