Grateful to have received @imperialcollegeldn.bsky.social President's Award for Societal Engagement for my PhD aiming to address racism in maternity care through community advocacy.
Thankful for my lived experience partners & supervision team @profhelenward.bsky.social @phoebeaverill.bsky.social ✨
If quality improvement methods raises overall performance while unjust gaps remain, we need to question whether our methods are designed to reduce them - Sarindi Aryasinghe, Head of Implementation at the NHS Race and Health Observatory.
How do you spot real impact when numbers mask the places where you really need to make progress? Or when power, privilege, and bias shape the systems of measurement?
Sarindi Aryasinghe reflects on how we can do our bit to turn commitments to equity into real, tangible, everyday improvement work.
“Listening is a tool for health equity, not just a soft skill”
Had a wonderful experience writing this piece that was commissioned for The Student BMJ by editor @georgeawebster.bsky.social!
www.bmj.com/content/390/...
⚠️ Simple accountability mechanisms can improve recruitment outcomes, but there is no silver bullet to tackling recruitment discrimination. Improving the quality and granularity of this recruitment data—such as disaggregating data by ethnicity—is also essential to the responsible use of AI.
4/4
📉 Black and Minority Ethnic candidates scored lower in interviews, with Black and Minority Ethnic women twice as likely to receive negative assessments compared to white women.
💬 There were thematic differences in candidate based on the candidate and hiring managers’ ethnicity and gender.
3/4
🔎 What did we find?
📝 Asking hiring managers to write a letter to the CEO explaining their recruitment decisions increased the odds of Black and Minority Ethnic candidates being appointed to a senior role by 1.7 times.
2/4
📣 New paper alert!
My new study shares how we used #artificial intelligence to evaluate inclusive recruitment efforts in one of the largest #NHS acute Trusts in England to increase ethnic diversity in senior leadership roles.
doi.org/10.1186/s129...
#workforce #medsky #discrimination #EDI
1/4
🚨New blog: Break the Barriers!🚨
For my PhD, my lived experience partners & I are co-producing research to address #racism in maternity care for Black families in NW London, and we want to share our journey!
🔗 First post + subscribe: bit.ly/3Hw2If4
#BlackMaternalHealth #coproduction #healthequity
Helen Ward, Carole and Sarindi Aryasinghe holding the 2024 BRC Public Involvement in Research trophy after their presentation at the NIHR Imperial BRC Annual Event.
On this #WorldHealthDay the @who.int focuses on the health of mothers and babies. Our 2024 Public Involvement in Research Competition Winner, @sarindiary.bsky.social, followed a co-production approach to address ethnic inequities in maternity care for Black women in West London.
👉 shorturl.at/bvVBO
BRC Public Involvement in Research Competition winner 24 receives the trophy 🏆 at the Annual Event. @sarindiary.bsky.social’s exceptional work addresses inequality in maternal mortality among Black women.
@profhelenward.bsky.social @imperialmed.bsky.social
imperialbrc.nihr.ac.uk/2024/12/10/w...
The opinion piece that I was commissioned to write as part of the BMJ's "Racism in Medicine" special issue was published today! Do have a read.
✨My essay in @thelancet.bsky.social this week has made the front page!✨ (I didn’t know about this 🤗)
‘Reflect, Collaborate and Listen’ looks at why doctors don’t listen and the urgent need to rebalance the power dynamic in the patient - doctor relationship.
www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...
list of banned keywords
🚨BREAKING. From a program officer at the National Science Foundation, a list of keywords that can cause a grant to be pulled. I will be sharing screenshots of these keywords along with a decision tree. Please share widely. This is a crisis for academic freedom & science.
📢 Gaza: 64,000 deaths due to violence between October 2023 & June 2024, new study estimates.
LSHTM research in The Lancet suggests Palestinian Ministry of Health underreported death toll due to traumatic injury by approximately 41%.
www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/n...
Fantastic editorial responding to my 1st PhD paper on importance of embedding community co-production to address ethnic inequities in #maternity care.
Communities have unique & important perspective of health services. Together we are greater than just the sum of our parts.
#medsky #academicsky
Thank you so much! 😊
Thanks so much, and lovely to be connected! Please do let me know your thoughts on the paper when you get around to it ☺️
Thank you so much Rebecca! Would love to hear your thoughts on it :)
Thanks to @imperialbrc.bsky.social for supporting my PhD work using #participatorymethods & #coproduction to tackle ethnic inequities in #maternity care.
My 1st study shows how we can work with communities to set #QI priorities👇🏾
qualitysafety.bmj.com/content/earl...
#academicsky #medsky #PhDsky
Absolutely! Good health is not just about the absence of safety incidents or illness, and this message came out very strongly in our study.
3️⃣ If we are to reduce ethnic inequities in maternity care, we need to use an integrated, #community-centred approach that goes beyond hospital settings.
We had 50+ workshop attendees from the NHS, local authorities, and communities. Meaningful change is built on collaboration and partnerships.
4/
2️⃣ The community workshops were led by lived experience and community organising experts, which was essential in building trust and buy-in of the overall process. #coproduction
This has led to some of the mothers taking forward the ideas themselves, such as peer support groups for black fathers.
3/
Our key findings:
1️⃣ While all groups prioritised staff education on culturally competent care, only community members highlighted the need for advocacy and mental health support.
Maternity hospital staff mostly prioritised educational materials (e.g. leaflets and videos) for families.
2/
Are maternity & #publichealth teams on the same page w/ communities when reducing ethnic inequities in maternity experiences?
My 1st PhD paper tries to answer this question in partnership with Black families in West London.
#academicsky #matexp #medsky #QIsky
doi.org/10.1136/bmjqs-2024-017848
1/
💡 What did we find?
Community members & staff both think staff education on unconscious bias and cultural competence is important, but community members felt we needed to improve mental health support and access to community advocacy in maternity care - this was not prioritised by staff.
2/
I know, especially when you’ve got minimal budget to do it as a PhD student too and research still remains sometimes a blackbox for underrepresented communities. I’m hoping someone has a magical answer, but maybe it’s wishful thinking? 🥲
I’m hoping to set up a blog to share progress & findings about my PhD research, and mine and my community partners experiences to encourage others to get involved in research.
Can anyone recommend any free blog sites that have good UX and are visually accessible? 🙏🏽
#scicomm #academicsky #PhDsky
Thanks so much Gill! So grateful for the inclusion as an early career researcher trying to change things for the better 🙏🏽
