DEFINITION

• While race, culture and related terms have different definitions, we have listed the most common ones.
• Race:
  • Any one of the groups that humans are often divided into based on physical traits regarded as common among people of shared ancestry[91].
  • Race is a social construct used to group people. Race was constructed as a hierarchal human-grouping system, generating racial classifications to identify, distinguish and marginalize some groups across nations, regions and the world. Race divides human populations into groups often based on physical appearance, social factors and cultural backgrounds[95].
• Culture:
  • The customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group. It encompasses language, religion, cuisine, and social habits[92].
  • The set of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features of society or a social group that encompasses, in addition to art and literature, lifestyles, ways of living together, value systems, traditions and beliefs[96]
• Ethnicity:
  • Of or relating to large groups of people classed according to common racial, national, tribal, religious, linguistic, or cultural origin or background[93]
• Socioeconomic status:
  • Socioeconomic status is the position of an individual or group on the socioeconomic scale, which is determined by a combination of social and economic factors such as income, amount and kind of education, type and prestige of occupation, place of residence, and—in some societies or parts of society—ethnic origin or religious background[94].
• Socioeconomic determinants of health:
  • The social determinants of health are the non-medical factors that influence health outcomes. They are the conditions in which people are born, grow, work, live, and age, and the wider set of forces and systems shaping the conditions of daily life. Examples include income, education, employment, food insecurity, housing access, social support[104].
• Health disparity:
  • A particular type of health difference that is closely linked with social, economic, and/or environmental disadvantage. Health disparities adversely affect groups of people who have systematically experienced greater obstacles to health based on their racial or ethnic group; religion; socioeconomic status; gender; age; mental health; cognitive, sensory, or physical disability; sexual orientation or gender identity; geographic location; or other characteristics historically linked to discrimination or exclusion[97].
• Health equity:
  • The attainment of the highest level of health for all people. Achieving health equity requires valuing everyone equally with focused and ongoing societal efforts to address avoidable inequalities, historical and contemporary injustices, and the elimination of health and health care disparities[97].
• Difference between race and ethnicity: Race is a more narrow approach of classifying on basis of physical attributes, whereas ethnicity is a broader concept, which includes cultural, social, religious experiences and habits of a group of people.
• Factors contributing to ethnic differences in the prevalence of diabetes: socioeconomic status, differential access to healthcare and proper nutrition, genetic propensity and cultural approaches to diet and lifestyle