Working with different ethnicities

Family walkingWe can help you to support people in the South Asian and African Caribbean communities to reduce their risk of getting heart disease, and change their lifestyles to look after their heart health.

Ethnic groups at risk

People from some Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) groups are more likely to get coronary heart disease than the rest of the UK population. Statistics show that in the UK:

  • coronary heart disease rates are the highest in South Asian communities
  • stroke rates are the highest in people with an African Caribbean background
  • you have a higher risk of developing high blood pressure if you are from an African Caribbean background than all the ethnic groups in the UK
  • the prevalence of type-2 diabetes for people of African Caribbean and South Asian ethnicity is much higher than in the rest of the population.

Publications

We have a wide range of booklets and DVDs available for the South Asian community on how to reduce the risk of heart disease and manage heart conditions in six different languages: Bengali, Punjabi, Gujarati, Hindi, Urdu and English.

We also have information for people from an African Caribbean background; including our Traditional foods and healthy dishes recipe book which includes healthy variations of familiar recipes from across the Caribbean.    

Online

Visit our ethnicity web pages to find out about the risks, and small lifestyle changes that be made to reduce them.

Outreach

South Asian communities

We promote awareness of the increased risk of heart disease due to ethnicity and support healthy lifestyle habits with South Asian communities in places of worship, community centres and at Melas around the UK.

African Caribbean communities

We raise awareness of their increased risk of strokes and diabetes within African Caribbean communities.