Introduction
The article is about is racial and ethnic variations in relation to health care problems. The article adds to the many articles written by sociologists and epidemiologists to connect the relationship that exists between health risks and the race/ethnicity of an individual. In the introduction part of the article, there is a reference to previous research regarding the influence of race and ethnicity on the health risks facing people. This reference to the previous article is important and useful in the article because it gives a history of the problem and the different races studied. Morabia (2004) agrees that this helps in giving a picture of what to expect the article to present.
Main body
Wu & Schimmele (2005) present the paper comprehensively especially when choosing the sample size to carry out the research. The researchers use twelve ethnic groups for their study of which they use a sample size of 67,858 persons in every nation. This is a good representative sample and thus the results of this are good for making inferences about the relationship between ethnicity and health matters and health risks an individual faces (Morabia, 2004). The article also looks at different aspects of health issues and considers such aspects as functional health and self-reported health.
The data used in the article is from the National population survey and as such, we can infer that this data is quite reliable for this kind of research because such an institution handles data related to health issues in the entire North American region. The research used two main study designs mainly telephone and face-to-face interviews. The use of telephone interviews to collect such data may be limited because the respondents may give inaccurate information since they are not in direct physical contact with the researcher. Some respondents may also not be willing to participate in the interview and this may lead to a reduction in the sample size of the research group and ultimately, inaccurate inferences (Wu & Schimmele, 2005). The use of face-to-face interviews is effective because it is possible for the researcher to confirm the ethnicity of the respondent due to physical contact with them. The face-to-face interview also gives direct feedback to the researcher and is effective for conducting such research.
The use of eleven different languages in conducting the interviews shows that the sample size used was representative and was useful in giving a comprehensive picture of the different ethnicities present. The measures used in the research in order to identify the different races are effective for the reason that the question helped in identifying eight visible minority groups that could have otherwise gone unnoticed had they used a different question. The tabular representation of the results of the research is effective in enhancing the understanding of individuals who review this research (Wu & Schimmele, 2005). The division of the table into various categories helps in explaining the findings of the research.
Conclusion
These categories help in the easy study of the research findings as well as categorizing the different factors that the research took into account. The article uses the mean as a measure of central tendency to describe the findings of the research. The use of the mean is effective because it takes incorporates all the factors used in the research and it shows the central point (Morabia, 2004). The article ends with a conclusion that sums up the findings of the article. It also gives the reasons for some of the findings posted in the article as well as giving remedies for some of the health problems identified in the research.
References
Morabia, A. (2004). A History of Epidemiologic Methods and Concepts. Basel, Munich: Birkhauser Verlag.
Wu, Z. & Schimmele, M. (2005). “Racial/ethnic variation in functional and self-report health”, American Journal of Public Health, 95(4): 710-709.