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Ethnicity important factor in rates of gonorrhoea and chlamydia infections

February 02, 2001

Rates of gonorrhoea and chlamydia are about three times as high in black Caribbeans as they are in black Africans, shows a study in Sexually Transmitted Infections.

Cases of gonorrhoea and chlamydia, recorded at 11 sexual health clinics in Lambeth, Southwark, and Lewisham Health Authority for the years 1994 and 1995, were studied. Ethnic group was classified using 1991 Census categories, and yearly rates of infection calculated.

There were almost 2,000 cases of gonorrhoea in men and women and just under 1400 cases of chlamydia in women over the study period. Prevalence of gonorrhoea was strongly associated with deprivation.

Rates of gonorrhoea among white and Asian/other ethnic group men were similar. But rates in black Caribbean men were two to four times as high as in black Africans. Rates of gonorrhoea in black Caribbean women were four times as high as those in black Africans. Rates of chlamydia were also highest in black Caribbean women aged 15 to 19.

Compared with whites, rates of gonorrhoea were 12 to 13 times as high in black Caribbeans and black other ethnic groups and chlamydia rates were eight times as high. Rates of gonorrhoea among Asian/other ethnic group men were comparable with those among white men while rates in Asian women were twice as high as those among white women.

Researchers have tended to lump people by skin colour alone, say the authors, thereby ignoring the wide variations in culture and behaviour that may contribute to the spread of infection. The authors are at pains to point out that scientific research into race and ethnicity has often been fraught with racism and stigmatisation. But refusal to acknowledge that there are differences also hinders efforts to prevent the spread of disease, they say.

An accompanying editorial in the same issue of the journal agrees that research must be careful not to be discriminatory or to ascribe biological susceptibility to race for which there is not a shred of evidence.

AlphaGalileo Foundation