Topic
Date published
11/01/2022
Advancing understanding on management of multimorbidity in ethnic minority populations and under-representation in associated clinical research
Qualification: PhD (3 years)
Department: University of Leicester, Health Sciences
Application deadline: 14 February 2022 - Interviews week commencing 21 February 2022
Start date: September 2022 at the latest
Project description
Multimorbidity is defined as the coexistence of two or more long-term health conditions and is associated with increased use of health services and a reduction in quality of life and life expectancy. The number of people living with multiple long-term health conditions continues to increase and meeting their needs will be one of the biggest challenges facing the NHS in coming years. Multimorbidity has been identified as a global research priority and as such this is an important and rapidly evolving field of research with the potential for significant impact.
Despite the high priority of multimorbidity for health and social care researchers, and the well-evidenced greater prevalence of long-term conditions (i.e. diabetes, heart disease etc.) in South Asian and Black populations in the UK, the prevalence, impact and management of multimorbidity in ethnic minority groups is underexplored. Some limited research suggests multimorbidity may be higher in ethnic minority compared to White British groups.
In relation to management, it is not clear if effective interventions are generalisable to ethnic minority groups. Our previous work on representation of ethnic minority populations in cardiovascular outcome trials suggests external validity is likely to be low, and work may be required to increase recruitment and retention to clinical trials.
As such a core part of this doctoral studentship will include a focus on the identification of effective multimorbidity management interventions in ethnic minority populations, and the degree to which their findings are generalisable. This is particularly contemporary as the inequality in chronic conditions between ethnic groups in the UK contributed to the greater risk of hospitalisation and death from COVID-19 for ethnic minority populations in both waves of the pandemic.
Additional areas of focus will include scoping major population-level databases to enable the candidate to answer contemporary research questions relating to mulitmorbidity in ethnic minority populations, and developing guidance for increasing ethnic minority representation in multimorbidity research.
This doctoral studentship will utilise a mixed methods approach. The learnings generated from this work could be used to inform the development and tailoring of multimorbidity management strategies for ethnic minority groups, and to develop best practice guidance for the recruitment and retention of ethnic minority populations in multimorbidity research.
Aims
The overall aim for the studentship is: To advance understanding on multimorbidity in ethnic minority populations and under-representation of ethnic minorities in associated clinical research.
The objectives for this studentship are:
1. To systematically review the global evidence base to identify effective interventions to manage multimorbidity in ethnic minority populations, and to determine ethnic minority representation in these trials. To include quantitative studies only, with meta-analyses (e.g. meta-trial sequential analysis) where appropriate.
2. To access and conduct a scoping review of major population databases that include multimorbidity data (e.g. CPRD, UK Biobank, NHANES etc.) to examine representation (including trends in representation) of ethnic minority populations.
3. To utilise representative pre-existing data (from objective 2) to examine a number of contemporary research question relating to mulitmorbidity in ethnic minority populations e.g. prevalence by ethnic group and associations with mortality.
4. To develop (with HCP’s and patients) best practice guidance for the recruitment and retention of ethnic minority populations into multimorbidity-related clinical research.