Earlier this month as part of Race Equality Week, partners across Bradford District and Craven came together to host a week-long Root Out Racism 2023 programme.
This included sessions ranging from positive action, zero tolerance to understanding cultural competency.
Race Equality Week 2023 was themed #ItsEveryonesBusiness because tackling race inequality is something everyone needs to be involved in. The week ran from 6-10th February 2023 with a mixture of face to face and online sessions.
The Root Out Racism movement is an ongoing commitment to tackling structural and institutionalised racism. The programme welcomed over 400 attendees from across the district, with 61 organisations participating including colleagues from the NHS, Bradford Council, education institutions and the voluntary and community sector.
As part of the programme, the Reducing Inequalities Alliance hosted a face to face ‘Taking inequalities action’ session at Margaret McMillan Tower in central Bradford.
We know that race and ethnicity play a part in the inequalities we see across our district. Dr Sohail Abbas opened the session by taking a look at the wider determinants of health and how we can work together to make a difference and reduce inequalities across the district.
The second part of the session was an interactive exercise which used the King’s Fund 3 A’s framework: Awareness, Action and Advocacy to help attendees think about the action they can take as an individual to reduce inequalities.
How does race link to inequalities?
Historically, race has been used to justify social, economic, and political inequalities. People of colour face discrimination and bias in their daily lives, this spans across education, employment, and housing. For example, 46% of ethnic minority children in Britain are living in poverty and for every £1 of White British wealth, Indian households have 90-95p, Pakistani households 50p, Black Caribbean 20p, and Black African and Bangladeshi households have 10p.
This has a negative impact on people’s mental and physical health. We also know that there are many inequalities in health outcomes for ethnic minority groups in the UK. For example, Black women are 4x more likely than white women to die in pregnancy or childbirth and 24% of all deaths in England & Wales in 2019 were caused by cardiovascular disease in black and minority ethnic groups.
Tackling health inequalities will help us move towards race equality. If you missed Race Equality Week you can still get involved by downloading our reflective thinking exercise on our Reducing Inequalities Alliance webpage. This will help you think about the individual action you can take to tackle inequalities.