Scottish Migrant and Ethnic Health Research Strategy (SMEHRS) Group

The Scottish Health and Ethnicity Research Strategy Steering group (SHERSS) was set up in December 2010 as recommended by the Health in Our Multi-ethnic Scotland report. SHERSS revised its strategy in 2014 and changed its name to the Scottish Migrant and Ethnic Health Research Strategy group (SMEHRS) to reflect a new strategic focus to include migrant health research.

COVID-19

An analysis of survival among confirmed COVID-19 cases shows that, after accounting for the effect of sex, age, deprivation and region, people of Bangladeshi ethnicity had around twice the risk of death when compared to people of White British ethnicity. People of Chinese, Indian, Pakistani, Other Asian, Black Caribbean and Other Black ethnicity had between 10 and 50% higher risk of death when compared to White British (Public Health England, 2020)

The ERG

In 2020, the Scottish Government established an Expert Reference Group (ERG) on COVID-19 and Ethnicity to consider and inform its approach to the impacts of COVID-19 on Minority Ethnic communities. This was in response to reports at a UK-wide and international level that some Minority Ethnic communities may be at risk of experiencing disproportionate effects, both in terms of adverse health outcomes and in a wider context, including economically.

The establishment of an Expert Reference Group on COVID-19 and Ethnicity demonstrates the Scottish Government’s concern about reports from England and the USA that people from minority ethnic backgrounds may be disproportionately impacted by COVID-19, both in terms of adverse health outcomes and in a wider context, including economically. The Group will help ensure there is an accurate understanding of COVID-19’s impact on minority ethnic communities in Scotland, and that our policy responses reflect this.

The IPP

The Immediate Priorities Plan (IPP) is based around delivering on the recommendations of the Expert Reference Group (ERG) on Covid and Ethnicity. The IPP focuses on supporting communities to recover from COVID-19 while implementing the recommendations of the Expert Reference Group on COVID-19 and Ethnicity (ERG). As such, there is a need to ensure there is an ongoing focus on implementing the REF that may have been lost through pivoting to responding to the pandemic. A significant proportion of the ERG recommendations focus on systemic and structural change.

A key recommendation of the ERG was to establish an external body to provide a range of functions, including oversight and governance. Recommendation 7 was to set up external governance to review race equality work, and the formation of an observatory.

The recommendations are broken up into two main groups:

• Systemic Issues and Risk (SIR)
• Improving Data and Evidence (IDE)