A human rights approach to preventing racial discrimination in health care (13 August 2025)

Summary

Racial discrimination, defined as any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent or national or ethnic origin that leads to nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on equal footing, of human rights and freedoms, remains pervasive in health-care systems.

Discriminatory practices based on race constitute both a moral and legal issue, and a public health threat, contributing to the prevalence of preventable diseases and even deaths.

Evidence shows that disparities in morbidity and mortality exist across different ethnic minority groups, for instance in relation to conditions such as rheumatic heart disease, cancer, asthma, chronic pulmonary disease and diabetes.

Racial discrimination contributes to current inequity and, if unaddressed, is likely to perpetuate or worsen disparities. For example, in digital health systems, unequal and biased data collection in artificial intelligence-based tools risks reproducing structural inequities among ethnic minority patient communities.

In this article, the authors propose a practical, global and rights-based approach for addressing racial discrimination in health care, informed by international human rights standards.