Central and Eastern European community health profile

Overview

The Central and Eastern European community health profile has identified and summarised the national and local evidence about the health, lifestyle behaviours and wider determinants of health that affect Central and Eastern European communities.

Although the focus of this report was health inequalities among Central and Eastern European communities in Birmingham, the limited available information on health inequalities has resulted in data being used from the UK and internationally, where available.

Community definition

Central and Eastern Europe is a geopolitical term indicating a sub-region of the European continent with varying geographic boundaries.

In the 2021 census, there was no relevant category to capture the Central and Eastern European population, often the ‘White: Other White’ ethnic group is used as an approximation. In addition to census data, where available, community specific information or country of birth data is included.

We recognise that using the ‘White: Other’ ethnic category will not be representative of all Central and Eastern European populations, due to the following limitations:

  • exclusion of those with a non-White ethnic identity
  • ‘White: Other’ includes populations from a variety of backgrounds e.g., people born in Italy made up 4.3% of the ‘White: Other’ ethnic group in England and Wales.

Therefore, health data on the ‘White: Other’ ethnic group may often distort and minimise some experiences of health inequalities among Central and Eastern European populations.

Birmingham Public Health suggest using the category ‘Central and Eastern European’ when collecting ethnic group of a population, and using an open text response to ask about people’s country or countries of heritage.

For more information on how Birmingham City Council is standardising demographic data, see the demographics questionnaire.

Population size

Population size estimates have been taken from the 2021 census for England and Wales, using the 288 category dataset for ethnic group.

England and Wales

Overall, 3,667,997 people identified with the ‘White: Other’ ethnic group in England and Wales (6.2% of total population). This included populations who identified as:

  • White Polish: 614,000 (1.0% of the total population)
  • White Romanian: 343,000 (0.6% of the total population)

Birmingham

Overall, 45,914 people identified with the ‘White: Other’ ethnic group in Birmingham (4.0% of total population). This included populations who identified as:

  • White Polish: 8,407 (0.7% of the total population)
  • White Romanian: 7,364 (0.6% of the total population)
  • White: Other Eastern European: 2,301 (0.2% of the total population)

There were also 1,152 people in Birmingham who self-defined their ethnicity as ‘Other ethnic group: Romanian’.

Health and wellbeing

To find out more about the health and wellbeing needs, and the identified health inequalities of Central and Eastern European communities, download the Central and Eastern European Community Health Profile report.

Available resources

To support in your understanding of health inequalities among Central and Eastern European communities, we have produced several resources, including:

View all Central and Eastern European community health profile downloads

Webinar

Watch our webinar which provides a summary of the demographics and key health inequalities among Central and Eastern European communities:

You can switch on subtitles once you have started to play the video. A menu will appear on the video screen.

Page last updated: 9 April 2024

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