Ethnic inequalities in health and wellbeing across the early and mid-lifecourse have been well-documented in the United Kingdom. What is less known is the prevalence and persistence of ethnic inequalities in health in later life. There is a large empirical gap focusing on older ethnic minority people in ethnicity and ageing research. In this paper, we take a novel approach to address data limitations by harmonising six nationally representative social survey datasets that span more than two decades. We investigate ethnic inequalities in health in later life, and we examine the effects of socio-economic position and racial discrimination in explaining health inequalities. The central finding is the persistence of stark and significant ethnic inequalities in limiting long-term illness and self-rated health between 1993 and 2017. These inequalities tend to be greater in older ages, and are partially explained by contemporaneous measures of socio-economic position, racism, and discrimination. Future data collection endeavours must better represent older ethnic minority populations and enable more detailed analyses of the accumulation of socio-economic disadvantage and exposure to racism over the lifecourse, and its effects on poorer health outcomes in later life.

In Australia today, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people experience significant ongoing disadvantage around employment, education, health, housing, and social inclusion. Local government agencies and others often now have roles for Aboriginal people to work and deal with relevant issues. Ten people working, or formerly working, in Aboriginal-related roles in local government were interviewed about the issues and benefits of such roles. Themes to emerge included the importance of properly resourcing the positions, having wide-ranging Aboriginal employment policies, providing mentoring and support for Aboriginal workers, and continuing to build cultural awareness in councils. Many of those interviewed described cultural awareness training as valuable for councils, but also questioned the efficacy of the way they are commonly run. Implications for local government include the need to ensure that what is already known about the effective implementation of policies in organisations is being applied; for example, by making Aboriginal employment policies the responsibility of each work area.