Ethnic differences in health and use of health care: the questions to be answered

Abstract

Ethnic differences in health and use of health care challenge the international public health highly. This issue of the International Journal of Public Health contains a number of findings on the various mechanisms that contribute to these differences, such as ethnicity in itself and the process and legal basis of the immigration to the hosting country. This editorial summarizes the lessons to be learned from these new findings. It ends with the questions to be answered next. For those, who stop reading editorials after the first paragraph: what we need now is evidence on the pathways leading to ethnic differences in health and on ways to intervene in these pathways. In addition and as part of that the concept of ethnicity and its attributes continue to require scrutiny.