Plain English summary

There is concern that some groups in UK society have poorer health outcomes than others. To devise policies that may reduce these inequalities in health, it is important to understand their origins. 

This study focusses on differences in health outcomes between groups that differ in terms of their ethnic backgrounds. We quantify the extent to which observed differences exist after factoring out the impact of differences between these groups in terms of their socio-economic status. This covers two issues: household income and educational attainment. 

We use two sources of data. The UK Household Longitudinal Survey (UKHLS) 2009-19 and the Health Survey for England (HSE) 2010-14. Both of these surveys use large samples of either the UK or England populations. We used around 355,000 responses from the UKHLS and 56,000 from the HSE. These large numbers are important because only a small proportion of people are from some ethnic minority groups. 

We look at different measures of health. We use responses individuals gave to assess their general health, quality of life and disability, and the presence of specific health conditions through self-reports of having been diagnosed. 

Ethnicity is self-selected from a list of standard categories and grouped into nine. The UKHLS also distinguishes those born abroad from UK-born.  

We find that the pattern of advantage or disadvantage differs depending on which measure of health is used and varies across different minority groups after controlling for socio economic status. Most of the difference in general health observed between different ethnic groups is accounted for by socio-economic status differences. 

The strongest evidence is for those born outside the UK, revealing health disadvantage for South Asian groups with respect to diabetes in men and women and cardiovascular disease among Bangladeshis. But we find health advantage, after adjusting for socio economic status, in relation to respiratory disease and cancer for members of the same groups.