| Summary - The Health of Minority Ethnic Groups '99 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Introduction
The 1999 Health Survey for England The Health Survey for England is a series of annual surveys about the health of people living in private households in England. It was commissioned by the Department of Health to provide better and more reliable information about various aspects of people's health, and to monitor selected health targets. The survey combines questionnaire-based interviews with physical measurements and the analysis of blood samples. Blood pressure, height and weight, smoking, drinking and general health are covered every year. Each year's survey also has a particular focus on a disease or condition or population group. The 1999 Health Survey focused on the health of minority ethnic groups, and included a large-scale representative sample of minority ethnic adults and children throughout the country. It is the most extensive survey on the health of minority ethnic groups ever carried out in England, and the first national survey to include minority ethnic children as well as adults. The sample was in two parts. One part was a boost sample designed to increase the number of informants from Black Caribbean, Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Chinese and Irish groups. (Although Black Africans were not included in the 1999 survey, development work for a future health survey among this group is being carried out.) Over 64,000 addresses were screened to establish whether there were any eligible residents from these groups. Among eligible residents at an address, up to four adults and three children were randomly selected for the survey. The other part was a general population sample which involved selecting about 6,500 addresses. At each address, all adults and (up to two) children aged 2-15 were eligible for interview.
Topics covered in the survey For informants from the target minority ethnic groups, the 1999 survey covered cardiovascular disease (CVD) for adults and asthma for children, as well as the core topics included each year. They were given both an interview and a nurse visit. The chart (on page 3) shows the information collected from minority ethnic informants. In 1999, informants in the general population sample (unless they were members of the target minority ethnic groups) were given a short version of the questionnaire covering only the core topics, and were not given the follow-up nurse visit.
Response to the survey Interviews were obtained with 6,844 adults and 3,415 children from minority ethnic groups. At the second stage of the survey, 4,905 adults and 2,387 children were visited by a nurse. This represents an interview response rate of 88% of adults and 95% of children in co-operating households. To calculate the response rate for all minority ethnic residents, the number of eligible adults and children for each minority ethnic group at non co-operating households must be estimated. Based on this estimate, the interview response rate among adults for each minority ethnic group was: Black Caribbean 55%, Indian 59%, Pakistani 60%, Bangladeshi 64%, Chinese 62% and Irish 65%. In the general population sample, interviews were carried out with 7,798 adults and 1,842 children. The household response rate was 76%.
Results This booklet presents selected findings from the 1999 Health Survey, including comparisons between minority ethnic groups and the general population. Because minority ethnic groups (except the Irish) tend to be much younger than the general population, differences in their health status or in risk factors may be partly or wholly due to these age differences. In order to take account of this, many of the results presented in this summary are in the form of age-standardised relative risks that compare each minority ethnic group to the overall general population figure (separately for men and women). In the case of a prevalence, the age-standardised 'risk ratio' is presented. In the case of a mean, the ratio is referred to as a 'ratio of means'. Given that the general population is taken as the base value of 1, a value greater than 1 suggests that a member of the minority ethnic group is more likely to have that condition than the population in general. A value less than 1 suggests that a condition is less likely in that minority ethnic group than in the general population. For example, a risk ratio of 1.5 means that the prevalence is 50% higher in that minority ethnic group than in the general population, after allowing for age differences. Similarly, a risk ratio of 0.7 means that the prevalence of the condition is 30% lower in that group than in the population as a whole. As well as the risk ratio, the charts included in the summary also show the 95% confidence interval. (Because the age profile among minority ethnic children is similar to that to children in the general population, results for children have not usually been age standardised.) References in this report to 'South Asians' include informants from Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi groups.
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