Health experts warn disregarding ethnicity when targeting health services is unscientific

A New Zealand Medical Journal editorial points to ethnicity as the strongest marker of health need.

It criticises the Government's directive to exclude race as a basis of public services provisions.

Public Health Physician Dr Belinda Loring says could lead to wasteful spending and worse health outcomes.

She says using population patterns to assess risk is at the core of evidence-based medicine.

She says ethnic health inequities in New Zealand are unjust and avoidable - and we need to use all the tools at our disposal to intervene.