Musculoskeletal Conditions and Minority Ethnic Groups: Making Senseand Sensibility of Healthcare in a Global Environment

Abstract

Twenty first century globalisation has been influenced by the emergence of discourse, migration patterns and the movement of ideologies across traditional national borders. In the context of healthcare, this necessitates traversing beyond the boundaries of the traditional medical model of practice. There is an urgent imperative to actively seek and include patients’ perception of their illness and attitudes to medical care, in order to provide optimum personalised healthcare - one of the aspirations of current NHS policy. A challenge for globalisation is an understanding at a deeper level of the nexus between culture, health and illness. Globalisation and multiculturalism require revisiting the current delivery of health care. This editorial proposes that the key to the success of this ideal is cultural competence at the levels of individual practitioners, organisations and policymakers. The clinical features and epidemiology of musculoskeletal disease in minority ethnic groups have been addressed relatively sparsely in the medical literature. A comprehensive review of all conditions is beyond the scope of this editorial. However, we shall emphasise key issues germane to musculoskeletal healthcare in minority populations by eliciting three exemplars: rheumatoid arthritis (“rheumatoid”), systemic lupus erythematosus (“lupus”) and low serum levels of vitamin D (“hypovitaminosis D”).