Public invited to shape research into ethnic inequalities and mental health

The first national online survey to give members of the public an opportunity to set research priorities in the field of ethnic inequalities and severe mental illness is launched today (July 11).

Led by the Synergi Collaborative Centre, the national public survey will shape the centre’s future work programme. It will facilitate the creation of research strategies to tackle mental health inequalities and help launch a national campaign to transform health systems.

Reflective of Synergi’s co-production of knowledge approach, the 15-minute survey aims to secure the opinions of a wide cross section of the public. This includes patients, carers, health and social care practitioners, commissioners, NGOs, volunteers and students.

The survey is being launched against a backdrop of longstanding ethnic inequalities. Compared to the majority of the population, a diagnosis of schizophrenia is five to six times more likely in Black African people and Black Caribbean people, and nearly three times more likely in South Asian people. As for detention rates among the civil population, Black Caribbean people and Black African people are three times more likely to be detained.

Priority setting

“This is the first time there has been a priority setting exercise for addressing ethnic inequalities in mental health care, especially regarding research," said Kamaldeep Bhui CBE, Synergi’s Project Lead and Professor of Cultural Psychiatry & Epidemiology, Queen Mary University of London. 

"We will be gathering knowledge and assembling views from all stakeholders to establish which are the most pressing issues to tackle and how best to rank them, linked to actions. Rather than replicating past studies, to relearn what has been forgotten, repressed, denied or overlooked, this survey will be forward facing to promote a new approach to set out research areas for impact on reducing aversive ethnic inequalities.”

James Nazroo, Synergi’s project partner, Professor of Sociology and Director of the Centre on the Dynamics of Ethnicity (CoDE) at the University of Manchester said: “Addressing the longstanding ethnic inequalities in the experience of severe mental illness is a pressing need and extremely challenging."

"One of the things that has prevented progress has been the under-representation of the full range of experiences and understandings of this issue."

"We will systematically analyse the responses to uncover points of agreement and disagreement to ensure the full range of views are heard. We particularly want to forefront the views of service users and the public, which are often unheard in these discussions.”

Marcia Willis Stewart QC (Hon), Chair of the centre’s Advisory Board and Managing Partner at leading civil rights law firm Birnberg Peirce and Partners, commented: “This piece of work comes at a time when the emerging scandal of the ‘hostile environment’ policy has brought the hardships and pressures that afflict ethnic minority communities and individuals into the public gaze."

Inequality

"At the same time equal access to justice for all continues to ebb away. For those who are doubly disenfranchised by ethnicity and fragile mental health, the importance of this public survey cannot be overstated.”

The survey, which will be open to the public for three months, covers a wide range of topics that accommodate intersectionality, the criminal justice system, housing, education, homelessness, health services, racism and commissioning.

The main findings will be shared with policymakers, research institutions and commissioners, and will be made available to the public from November 2018.

The survey will be open to the public until 10 October 2018.

• See also: Race - new methods backed to tackle inequality
• See also: Breaking down racism in mental health care