Ethnic minorities: key points

• A major new development in Scottish health data on ethnicity is the introduction (from April 2012) of information on ethnic group at the time of death registration, (see BMJ article) which follows publication of this as one of the recommendations of the Health in our multi-ethnic Scotland  report in 2009.
• Scotland has a number of white ethnic minority groups, including those of English, Irish and Eastern European origins. However, this section focuses on the non-white minority groups, which formed 2.01% of the Scottish population in the 2001 Census. This total does not include gypsy travellers, refugees, asylum seekers or migrant workers.
• Minority ethnic groups are younger than the general population and many were born in Scotland.
• The largest non-white minority ethnic group is Pakistani (white Irish are a larger ethnic group but are not included in the 2.01% figure for non-white minority groups).
• There is a clear policy commitment in Scotland to address discrimination against minority ethnic groups and inequalities in health.
• Understanding needs and monitoring progress is hampered by the severe lack of routine information on the health of minority ethnic groups in Scotland.
• Work is in progress to improve the routine collection of data on ethnicity in order to address ethnic inequalities in health.
• Minority ethnic groups in general have lower mortality than the general population, but may have specific health problems, such as heart disease and diabetes among South Asians.