Geo-Racial Origins, Social Inequality and Health: An Analysis of the 1996--1997 National Population Health Survey

Although Canada is premised on values of cultural melange, equality and social justice and despite its official commitment to multiculturalism, a large proportion of racial minorities live alternate realities. Literature suggests that Canadian society is stratified along racial and ethnic lines. The consensus within Canadian academia is that racial minorities are socially and economically disadvantaged in Canada. Evidence illustrates that socioeconomic inequalities often translate into health disparities. The relationship between ethno-racial group membership and inequality as well as that between inequality and health are widely studied. However, there is a dearth of Canadian research focusing on the relationship between ethno-racial origins and health and how this is mediated by inequality. Using public microdata from the cross-sectional household component of the 1996/97 National Population Health Survey (NPHS), this thesis investigates whether racial disparities in health exist in Canada and to what extent these disparities are a function of socioeconomic differences.