Afro-descendants in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru and the Challenges of Measuring Health Gaps

In Latin America, the inclusion of a race/ethnicity variable in the administrative records of health establishments is still very rare. Additionally, Health Departments in the countries analyzed have not yet incorporated race/ethnicity variable following the standardization used by their National Statistical Offices (the only exception is Brazil). This is a major area for improvement and deserves immediate attention by countries if they wish to quantify the magnitude and promote the analysis of existing race/ethnic disparities in access to health services. In this presentation to the ICHAD (International Conference on Health in the African Diaspora) conference, we: (i) briefly review what is known about the connections between socio-economic and racial inequalities; (ii) describe the data available; (iii) estimate the magnitude of race gaps in some health outcomes and (iv) map out a research agenda for producing knowledge on these issues.