Ethnic minorities: self-assessed health from recent Censuses

The 2022 Census asked respondents to describe their health in the previous twelve months and to say whether or not they had a limiting long-term illness. Self-rated health was described as “very good”, “good”, “fair”, “bad” or “very bad”. These data should be interpreted with caution as the cross-cultural validity of these questions is not fully understood.

Data by ethnic group

Charts 1a - 1c shows the proportion of different age groups in Scotland with fair/bad/very bad self-reported health.

Gypsies/travellers have the worst self-reported health among ethnic groups across all age groups.
Among those aged 0-24, Other African and Indian, Indian Scottish or Indian British have better self-reported health than the White Scottish population while the White: Gypsy/ Traveller, Caribbean, Caribbean Scottish or Caribbean British, Black, Black Scottish or Black British and White: Showperson groups have worse self-reported health.
For those aged 25-49, White: Gypsy/ Traveller, White: Showperson, Caribbean, Caribbean Scottish or Caribbean British and Bangladeshi, Bangladeshi Scottish or Bangladeshi British have worse self-reported health than the White Scottish population, while Other African, Other White, Other White British and White Irish have better health.
Among those aged 65+, all other non-White ethnic groups except Mixed or multiple ethnic group, Other Asian and Other African are likely to have poorer self-reported health than the White Scottish Population.

Allik et al, 2022 examined health and health inequalities by ethnic minority group in Scotland using the 2011 Census. The results show that the White Scottish population tend to have worse health and higher socioeconomic inequalities in health than many other ethnic groups, while White Polish and Chinese people tend to have better health and low socioeconomic inequalities in health. These results are more salient for ages 30-44. The Pakistani population has high rates of poor health similar to the White Scottish for ages 15-44, but at ages 45 and above Pakistani people have the highest rates of poor self-rated health. Compared to other ethnicities, Pakistani people are also more likely to experience poor health in the least deprived areas, particularly at ages 45 and above.

Data by religion

Religion is an important dimension of ethnicity and majorities in many ethnic groups identify strongly with particular religious traditions as data on ethnicity by religious group from the 2011 census show (to view data click here (49Kb)). To view Scottish data from the 2001 Census on self-assessed health by religion click here (17Kb). Muslim and Sikh women were more likely than women in other groups to report poor health, though the number of respondents in older age groups was small and the figures in these groups should be interpreted cautiously. Muslim, Roman Catholic and Sikh men were more likely than men from the general population to report poor health. More information on health and religion in the Census is contained in the report Analysis of religion in the 2001 Census and Analysis of Equality results from the 2011 Census published by the Scottish Government.

Please note: If you require the most up-to-date data available, please check the data sources directly as new data may have been published since these data pages were last updated. Although we endeavour to ensure that the data pages are kept up-to-date, there may be a time lag between new data being published and the relevant ScotPHO web pages being updated.