SCOTLAND’S largest trade union claims the pandemic deaths of black workers are going “unmeasured and unmanaged” due to data gaps.
Unison is calling for a shake-up of the country’s recording procedures after the latest report from the National Records of Scotland (NRS) provided the first ethnicity breakdown of coronavirus cases here.
The July figures come after data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) confirmed a higher risk of serious symptoms or death in England and Wales for people from ethnic minority backgrounds.
In both studies, people of South Asian origin were found to be at elevated risk.
Deaths involving this group were almost twice as likely to involve Covid-19 than for white Scots.
The white Irish community was also disproportionately affected and diversity organisation BEMIS said the pandemic had illuminated the “incoherence” of “data challenges”.
Reasons for the differing impact of the virus on ethnic groups is unclear.
However, previous studies have suggested that the link persists even when other factors like income level and employment type are taken into account.
And the study found there was insufficient evidence to conclude that Covid-19 impacted any other black, Asian or minority ethnic (BAME) group disproportionately.
Pete Whitehouse, NRS director of statistical services, said that was “due to the low number of completed records for deaths involving Covid-19 in other minority ethnic groups”.
Today Unison is calling on all public bodies to review their pandemic response “on the basis that BAME communities face a heightened risk, either through increased exposure, or underlying health vulnerability, or both”.
Unison have also stated that the way data is recorded has prevented a clear understanding of the coronavirus impact on black, African or Afro-Caribbean people in Scotland.
National Officer Peter Hunter said: “What gets measured gets managed and at the moment inequality is going unchecked. We need urgent action, from government, from integrated joint boards running care and from employers.
“The inability of Scottish public records to expose discrimination was well known before the pandemic and the desire to seek a Scottish slant on a known, global phenomena has had the end result of delaying action on equality and wider public health.”
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