The Roma people originated in northern India and have been known in Europe for nearly a thousand years. For much of that time they have been the subjects of discrimination and oppression, culminating in the extermination of half a million Roma in the Nazi death camps. While it is widely believed that the health of Roma people is often poorer than the majority population, these inequalities remain largely unresearched.

Roma experience high levels of discrimination and social exclusion. Our objective was to examine differences in self-rated health(SRH) between Roma and non-Roma in Serbia.