Health and discrimination in Arabs, immigrants and Jewish Israelis

Background: Israel consists of three major population groups that differ in their language and culture. The two minority groups, Arabs and new immigrants from the former Soviet Union (fSU) have higher levels of self-reported discrimination, however it is not clear if these feeling have an effect on health. Aims: To Asses discrimination on the basis of ethnicity or socioeconomic status (SES) and its association with physical and mental self reported health. Methods: A random telephone survey was conducted with 600 Jews and 400 Arabs living in Israel, among the Jews, 200 were immigrants from fSU. The interviews were conducted in Hebrew, Arabic and Russian. The questionnaire included socio-demographic questions, questions regarding physical and mental health, self reported chronic diseases, and self reported discrimination on the basis of ethnicity and SES regarding education, work, housing and health services. Results: Generally, the immigrants reported higher levels of subjective discrimination due to ethnicity compared to Arabs and veteran Jews, and the Arabs reported higher levels of discrimination due to SES. Only among Arabs ethnic discrimination was associated with subjective physical health after adjusting for SES variables. SES discrimination was associated with subjective physical health among Jews- immigrants and veterans. Ethnic discrimination was associated with subjective mental health after adjusting for SES variables only among veteran Jews, and associated with SES discrimination in all population groups. Conclusions: Discrimination is associated with health measures; however it varies depending on the type of discrimination and the population groups.