↓ Skip to main content

BMJ

Negro, Black, Black African, African Caribbean, African American or what? Labelling African origin populations in the health arena in the 21st century

Overview of attention for article published in Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, November 2005
Altmetric Badge

Mentioned by

news
1 news outlet
policy
3 policy sources
twitter
59 X users
wikipedia
5 Wikipedia pages
googleplus
2 Google+ users

Citations

dimensions_citation
201 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
229 Mendeley
citeulike
1 CiteULike
Title
Negro, Black, Black African, African Caribbean, African American or what? Labelling African origin populations in the health arena in the 21st century
Published in
Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, November 2005
DOI 10.1136/jech.2005.035964
Pubmed ID
Authors

Charles Agyemang, Raj Bhopal, Marc Bruijnzeels

Abstract

Broad terms such as Black, African, or Black African are entrenched in scientific writings although there is considerable diversity within African descent populations and such terms may be both offensive and inaccurate. This paper outlines the heterogeneity within African populations, and discusses the strengths and limitations of the term Black and related labels from epidemiological and public health perspectives in Europe and the USA. This paper calls for debate on appropriate terminologies for African descent populations and concludes with the proposals that (1) describing the population under consideration is of paramount importance (2) the word African origin or simply African is an appropriate and necessary prefix for an ethnic label, for example, African Caribbean or African Kenyan or African Surinamese (3) documents should define the ethnic labels (4) the label Black should be phased out except when used in political contexts.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 59 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 229 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
United States 3 1%
Canada 1 <1%
South Africa 1 <1%
Unknown 224 98%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Ph. D. Student 49 21%
Student > Doctoral Student 32 14%
Student > Master 24 10%
Student > Bachelor 23 10%
Researcher 16 7%
Other 41 18%
Unknown 44 19%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Social Sciences 53 23%
Medicine and Dentistry 38 17%
Psychology 28 12%
Nursing and Health Professions 14 6%
Arts and Humanities 8 3%
Other 34 15%
Unknown 54 24%