COVID-19 and race: Protecting data or saving lives?

This article uses the COVID-19 pandemic to demonstrate how our understanding of ethnic inequalities could be improved by greater use of algorithms that infer ethnic heritage from people's names.

Corresponding author:

Richard Webber, OriginsInfo Ltd, 3 Bisham Gardens, London N6 6DJ, UK. Email: richardwebber@originsinfo.eu

Why it is so difficult to talk about race?

There are two particular issues which we believe merit the attention of the market research sector. The first is understanding why it should be so difficult to engage in public discussion of the behaviors that characterize different ethnic groups. The second relates to evidence. In our experience, few public servants are as well supported as they would like to be with evidence of how different minority populations use the services they are responsible for delivering....

Not a subscriber?

Schedule your live demo with our team today

WARC helps you to plan, create and deliver more effective marketing

  • Prove your case and back-up your idea

  • Get expert guidance on strategic challenges

  • Tackle current and emerging marketing themes

We’re long-term subscribers to WARC and it’s a tool we use extensively. We use it to source case studies and best practice for the purposes of internal training, as well as for putting persuasive cases to clients. In compiling a recent case for long-term, sustained investment in brand, we were able to support key marketing principles with numerous case studies sourced from WARC. It helped bring what could have been a relatively dry deck to life with recognisable brand successes from across a broad number of categories. It’s incredibly efficient to have such a wealth of insight in one place.

Insights Team
Bray Leino

You’re in good company

We work with 80% of Forbes' most valuable brands* and 80% of the world's top top-of-the-class agencies.

* Top 10 brands