The Ethnic Health Handbook: A Factfile For Health Care Professionals

by Ghada Karmi (Editor)

Because patterns of disease are known to differ between ethnic groups, it is essential that health-care professionals recognize this fact in order to make effective diagnoses and provide proper treatment. Accordingly, providing culturally appropriate and sensitive health care depends upon reliable information about ethnic minority customs that may influence health. The Ethnic Health Handbook provides such rapidly assimilated information for health professionals working in a variety of settings. For easy reference, each entry is arranged alphabetically, follows a standard format, and is presented in an abbreviated form. Compiled in consultation with ethnic community leaders, health workers and representatives of ethnic and religious organisations, this handbook is an invaluable data source on the customs, demography, religion, refugee circumstances, and health of all the major ethnic groups currently in the UK. As such, it is essential reading for anyone concerned with providing an informed, equitable and caring health service. Finally, a chapter on ethnic monitoring is also included because of its mandatory nature for all UK in-patients.

132 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 1996

About the author

Dr Ghada Karmi was born in Palestine and then had to flee with her family when it became Israel. She grew up in Britain and now she's a doctor, author, academic, and well-know international commentator on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Ghada still vividly remembers a huge bombing just behind her house in Jerusalem. "It was absolutely dreadful. I was bewildered, I was scared - I could see my parents were scared, which is very scary for a child because you think your parents know it all and they look after you. I knew, from that moment on, things had changed for us. I didn't know how, but things weren't going to be the same again."

After fleeing their family home, her family eventually settled in London. "My mother was very angry about the loss of the homeland. She didn't speak English, she didn't want to come that far afield, she just wasn't prepared. I'm afraid she never adapted, she stayed very Arab. I think it's a very great tragedy, one of the many, is people like my mother, who could not accept her exile, and was never really happy in Britain - and never found happiness again, in fact."

Unlike her mother, Ghada settled in fairly quickly. "I was a child. I made friends, I became very much part of the English way of life. I married an Englishman! I felt not just integrated, but assimilated."

Her idea for a one-state solution in the Middle East hasn't got much support as yet. "This is still a minority view. There is a constituency for it, on both sides, and also by the way among non-Jews and non-Palestinians, but the good news is - this constituency is growing. A few years back nobody was talking about the one-state solution. Today, three or four years on, we are hearing more and more voices raised in support. That, to me, shows that the trend is growing."