Patient skin colour significantly affects quality of medical care, research shows

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New reporting from the Guardian has shed further light on the ‘ethnicity pain gap’. This is what has to be done to close it

Read more from the Guardian’s ethnicity pain gap series

I always know someone is going to say something racist when they start a sentence with, “I’m not racist, but …” Nobody likes to think they would ever discriminate against someone based on the colour of their skin – and some people seem increasingly uncomfortable about acknowledging that such discrimination exists at all in the world. Yet we are now seeing a backlash from certain political groups against diversity initiatives, including from Kemi Badenoch who wants to do away with “DEI bureaucracy”, and Nigel Farage who promises to get rid of “woke” council roles such as those involved in increasing diversity, equity and inclusion.

Whatever your political views, no one wants debates to be lost in emotion rather than based on the evidence. So it is helpful to come back to facts about race and how it affects people’s lives. And as new Guardian reporting on racial inequalities in pain relief reveals , when it comes to healthcare, the evidence is overwhelming: race and ethnicity are associated with differences in the quality of care people receive and, ultimately, in their health outcomes. Regardless of whether anyone is being racist, it is clear that some people receive worse healthcare because of their racial or ethnic background.

Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh

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