This essay will be looking at the historical roots of racial inequality, what inequalities are in health according to ethnicity and it will also discuss the sociological explanations for this. To look at these topics we have to explore a range of factors such as the biological reason for differentiating groups with questions such as, what is race and ethnicity, and why sociologists are interested in race as a social definition, what is racism and the relationship between slavery and racism and identify what institutional and cultural racism is. The latter part of this essay will go onto discuss some statistics on health and ethnicity and give some sociological explanations for these inequalities. Human beings are all part of one species. Biological and cultural differences vary in human. Looking at a biological difference in someone, you might try to differentiate between eye color or hair type. However, there is little biological difference if one human being and another conceive a baby then that child is also human regardless of color, it shows that the genetic differences between people are very small. Scientists in the nineteenth century decided to classify people of different physical appearance into groups. There were three types of groups used to divide humans and were named as Mongoloid (south and East Asia, north and South America and Pacific, yellow colour), the Negroid (African, Black colour) Caucasoid (European, White colour.) The scientists also wrongfully suggested that one’s biological make up was what determined ones cultural, intellectual and moral achievements. (Taylor, P. 1996). Through these theories, they based a ranking system in hierarchy order placing Caucasoid (white colour) at the top as superior, and the Negroid (black color) at the bottom as inferior. However, biologist have rejected this whole earlier view of “race” being biological, as it has been proven that the little variations in peoples physi