8.2.1: Race and Ethnicity - Definitions

The concept of different races within the species homo sapiens is a social construct; it has no basis in genetics or biology (Yudell et al., 2016). Races are categorized as characteristics of an external phenotype (such as skin color, eye color, hair type), and/or as a cultural identity or inheritance. A person’s race may be a part of their own social identity, or could be applied to them by society, based on their appearance. Ethnicity is different from race in that it is more associated with a cultural heritage, language, religion, customs, shared history, or attachments to ancestral land (Seabert et al., 2021). Ethnicity is also socially constructed, and an ethnic identity may change over time with different generations. For example, a person with dark skin may be treated by other members of society as Black (racially). Assumptions and stereotypes may be made about them, microaggressions aimed at them and they may experience discrimination for being Black. The same person may also identify as ethnically Nigerian-American. Their parents or grandparents may have immigrated from Nigeria, they may adopt and express various customs and cultural expressions of both Nigerian and American culture - and perhaps a Nigerian-American subculture. Another individual with light skin may check the box for “White” or “Caucasian” on government documents, and may be ethnically Armenian. Each person’s lived experience within society is influenced by all of their identities, whether the identity is ascribed to them by U.S. society, or owned and expressed by themselves.

How both race and ethnicity influence health outcomes via the social determinants of health has much more to do with racism, xenophobia, and ethnocentrism in American social, economic, and political structures than any influence from genetics, or cultural behaviors. (Genetic predispositions to specific health conditions that can be passed to offspring are covered briefly in chapter 9). Racial health disparities are not genetic predispositions to poor health. Ethnicities are poorly defined, complex, and fluid. Ethnicity in public health research often depends on self-identification with arbitrary classifications (such as “Hispanic” or “Asian”). Yet race and ethnicity are still used by the U.S. government in collecting census data, and still used in epidemiology - particularly to help identify health inequities that may be caused by systemic and structural racism, and Anglo/European-ethnocentrism (Bhopal, 1997).