Reducing inequalities in health research
Reducing inequalities in healthcare research
The team
Abimbola Ayorinde is an Associate Professor in Warwick Medical School with expertise in health services and public health research. Ayorinde leads a project supported by the Place-Based Research and Culture Fund and encompassed by Warwick’s work within the NIHR School for Public Health Research.
Supporting Ayorinde is Raheela Shaikh, a Research Fellow who has worked with under-served communities and various grass-roots organisations for the last fourteen years, with a keen interest in mitigating ethnic inequalities - particularlythose relating to cardiovascular diseases and stroke.
There are several community-based partners involved in the project, including the Bangladeshi Women’s Association, Coventry Empowered African Women Group, Central Hall, UK Islamic Mission, British Nationals Overseas, Aston Dars group and Maxival Recruitment and Consultancy.
The challenge
It is widely acknowledged that people from minority ethnic groups are less likely to engage in health research.
This is a multi-faceted issue, stemming from mistrust, historic mistreatment, and language and accessibility barriers.
Consequently, many research findings are not applicable to these groups.
Our approach
Ayorinde and Shaikh’s project aims to co-create various innovative ways to promote the inclusion of racially minoritised communities in health research, and to engage with several partners and community groups across the West Midlands to form the West Midlands Knowledge and Action Partnership for Race Equity (WMKARE).
Workshops
Working collaboratively with their partners, the team have focused their attention first on workshops with key communities to determine the existing reasons why people do or do not participate in research, whilst also highlighting to them the importance of health research.
Videos
Following on from this, the team worked to produce a video emphasising the significance of health research, its applications, and how participating as a minority ethnic individual can benefit not just themselves but many others. The video was translated into multiple languages, to ensure that the content can be accessed by all groups associated with WMKARE.
Interactive Map
A database was made to help identify community organisations and groups that serve people from minority ethnic backgrounds. This provides information on names and contacts for organisations, and the populations they serve. Work is currently underway creating the interactive Google Map to showcase these organisations and the areas they work in.
Our Impact
Ayorinde and Shaikh hope the project will help to promote equitable research participation, collaboration, and knowledge exchange.
They presented the knowledge partnership at the British Medical Journal’s Research Forum in December 2023, and have been meeting with various stakeholders who are interested in further supporting the knowledge partnership. So far, the project has grown by an additional thirteen partners.
Not only does the project hope to highlight the importance of getting involved in health research, but also to strengthen community bonds and help forge new connections between marginalised communities, universities and researchers.
Looking ahead
In the future, the network of community organisations will expand beyond the West Midlands, allowing more researchers to reach different communities, and open up research participation opportunities to groups that have historically been less involved. The combination of these anticipated impacts will strengthen links between communities, universities, health service providers and policymakers, to ultimately reduce inequalities in health research.