Race

Race is a protected characteristic under EA10. The Race disparity audit (October 2017, revised March 2018) published by the Cabinet Office identified health differences between ethnic groups across a range of health-related behaviours and preventable poor outcomes, with each ethnic group exhibiting both healthy and unhealthy behaviours.

The audit highlighted factors that could affect attendance at work such as being overweight, smoking, or mental health problems. Although it did not draw any specific conclusions for sickness absence policy, these are factors that negotiators may want to take into account.

The Patient.Info website (https://patient.info) provides information on diseases and how these affect different ethnic groups, focusing on cardiovascular disease, hypertension (including high blood pressure), diabetes, cancer, mental health, and cerebrovascular disease (including strokes). It notes that patterns of ethnic variation in health are extremely diverse and many overlapping factors contribute.

There is greater variation in the rates of some diseases by ethnicity than by other socio-economic factors. Large-scale surveys like the annual Health survey for England show, for example, that black and minority ethnic groups as a whole are more likely to report ill-health and that ill-health among black and minority ethnic people starts at a younger age than in white British groups.