Accusations of a racist health system alarmist and unhelpful – Stuff.co.nz

OPINION: There has been a bit of discussion lately about which groups in New Zealand should have been given the vaccine first.

I guess there are a bunch of factors the decision-makers considered including vulnerability, susceptibility, geographical location, and plain fairness. Its a tough call and criticism from some has been harsh.

That criticism has included assertions of racism. Even before the vaccine roll-out, there were claims from academics and some community leaders that our health system is racist, and thats why we have ethnicity-related health disparities.

In fact, last September an issue of the New Zealand Medical Journal featured this issue.

READ MORE:* Language Matters: Change is the only constant* Boris Johnson's most senior black adviser quits in row over 'divisive' race report* Reaching out an initiative too far in facilitation of language change

Before going further, Id suggest that many hard-working health or medical workers would be surprised and probably upset if they were called racists or said to exhibit racist behaviour.

To look at this a bit further its worth understanding what race and racist mean.

Race, is variously defined (by the Shorter Oxford Dictionary) as groups or tribes of people from common stock or ancestry, groups of persons connected by common descent or origin, and one of the great divisions of mankind, having certain physical peculiarities in common.

Ethnicity, according to Statistics NZ, is a measure of cultural affiliation. It is not a measure of race, ancestry, nationality, or citizenship. It is self-perceived and people can belong to more than one ethnic group.

So, from my reading the difference between race and ethnicity is that the latter is the group you identify with in a social and cultural context, and is something you can change. Race, on the other hand, seems to have more of a biological definition, related to the expression of the genes you inherited from your parents and unchangeable.

That makes a racist someone who treats, or even thinks of other people in a different way based on what they look like or their ancestry. Political, social, and economic discrimination based on race is one example; its called apartheid.

Stuff

Steve Stannard is a former professor of Exercise Physiology at Massey University, and holds degrees in agricultural science and human nutrition.

Not for a moment do I think that there is not racism in New Zealand, and Im sure deep down I might have a particular thought on how people who look different might behave at times. If you werent the same, youd probably be lying. And there may indeed be racist attitudes and behaviours within our health sector.

Having said that, in New Zealand, to my knowledge, we only collect data relating to self-identified ethnicity, not indices related to race. I am certainly not aware of any modern studies that connect race to measures of health.

So when I read academic articles concluding racism in the New Zealand health sector but the data cited relates to self-identified ethnicity I start to wonder about the validity of the study methodology.

Nevertheless, data does point to unequitable health outcomes experienced by different ethnicities from their interaction with the New Zealand health system. However, there are also ethnic-related inequalities in health status on entry into that system.

The effectiveness of our health system should be related to the change in health that occurs from experience in New Zealand health, not solely the health status of a person as they finish.

This is critical, because if the issue is that health is worse when initially engaging with our health system, then the problem likely lies with prevention and diagnostic opportunity rather than what goes on once someone is being treated.

If that were the case, extra resource would need to be directed at health promotion, education, and access to appropriate diagnostic opportunity for that ethnic group rather than, for example, putting extra resource into the tail end of treatment.

Simply bleating that the New Zealand health system is inequitable is not helpful for those seeking improved health as they pass through. Nor is using the term racist when in fact race is not considered as an independent variable in any research which actually measures health status or health outcomes.

The word racist carries such a weighty connotation I cant help thinking that headlines containing the word, particularly from academia, are there only to attract attention and more government funding.

As far as the vaccine roll-out goes, anyone who is likely to be hit harder by Covid-19 or anyone who might easily pass it on to someone who will be hit harder should be encouraged to get a jab as soon as possible regardless of their self-identified ethnicity or what they might look like. Because that is ultimately whats best for the team of 5 million.

Steve Stannard is a former Massey University academic and small business owner in Manawat.

Read the original post:

Accusations of a racist health system alarmist and unhelpful - Stuff.co.nz