Regional conference on Ethnicity and health equity opens June 18

Washington, June 15, 2001—Racial discrimination harms the quality of life of people and results in negative effects on health, said the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) in a presentation for a regional conference on ethnicity and health equity, to be held June 18 to 20 in Washington.

"The central ideal of this paper is that racial discrimination is a social factor responsible for health differentials among individuals," said Dr. Cristina Torres, regional policy adviser in PAHO's Program on Public Policy and Health and author of Ethnicity and Health: Another Perspective Towards Equality. "Discrimination in health operates in different ways: either directly, in the form of barriers in access to services, poor quality services, and inadequate information for decision-making; or, through indirect mechanisms linked with lifestyles, place of residence, type of occupation, income level, or status of the individual," and the process of segregation and self-exclusion in itself generates disease by imposing greater stress on individuals, harsher living conditions, and barriers in access to health services, she said.

The conference on ethnicity and health equity, organized jointly effort by PAHO, the Inter-American Development Bank, the World Bank and Interamerican Dialogue, is intended as a forum for countries of the Americas to express views on the impact of ethnic issues on public health, on equity in access to health care, and its effects on the quality of life and the integral development of all the people in the region. Participants are expected from the United States, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Uruguay and Trinidad and Tobago, all countries with populations of African descent.

The Pan American Health Organization supports the efforts of Latin American and Caribbean countries to alleviate poverty, and directs part of its efforts to reducing inequities in health. PAHO's Division of Health and Human Development has centered its technical cooperation in the area of Equity and Health.

"Within those coordinates, this presentation has the objective of contributing to the study of inequities in health by exploring the relationship between health and ethnicity," said Dr. Torres. "We have confirmed that this process of segregation and self-exclusion in itself generates disease by imposing greater stress on individuals, harsher living conditions, and barriers in access to health services."

The total indigenous population of Latin America and the Caribbean is estimated at 45 to 50 million people, a tenth of the total population, with 90% of those concentrated in Central America and the Andes. The indigenous population in the United States numbers about 1.6 million persons. Estimates for Latin America show that the countries with the highest percentage of indigenous population are Bolivia, Guatemala, Peru, and Ecuador, with figures ranging from 70 percent to 40 percent. The three countries with the largest indigenous populations in absolute terms are Mexico, with 13 million, Peru, with 11 million, and Guatemala with 7 million.

The paper on ethnicity and health is available on PAHO's web page at www.paho.org/English/HDP/HDD/etnia.pdf

The Pan American Health Organization, founded in 1902, works with all the countries of the Americas to improve the health and raise the living standards of their peoples. It also serves as the Regional Office for the Americas of the World Health Organization.