Strategy and Plan of Action on Ethnicity and Health 2019-2025

Abstract

[Introduction]: In the framework of universal health, the Member States of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) have prioritized actions to ensure that all people and communities have access, without any kind of discrimination, to comprehensive, appropriate, timely, and quality health services. However, asymmetrical power relationships and domination have led to conditions in which members of certain ethnic groups— including indigenous, Afro-descendant, and Roma populations— systematically experience different forms of discrimination and exclusion that give rise to inequities and social injustice. Marginalization and discrimination based on ethnicity, including institutional racism, interact negatively with other structural determinants such as gender, creating health inequities in a region characterized by its rich ethnic and cultural diversity... With a view to cooperating with the Member States in the implementation of the guidance contained in the Policy on Ethnicity and Health, this document presents the Strategy and Plan of Action on Ethnicity and Health 2019-2025.