As part of our work in the past in NIHR CLAHRC NWC (2015-2020) we focused on raising awareness amongst our staff, member organizations, and the public about health inequalities. We also developed the Health Inequalities Assessment Toolkit (HIAT) to support those involved in health research integrate health inequalities considerations into their studies.

Dr Ana Porroche-Escudero and Distinguished Prof. Jennie Popay discuss here their experience of “ The CLAHRC NWC equity lens journey” and share their insights for a need to take a systematic approach towards strengthening the equity sensitivity of health research. How an effort to mainstream equity could be initiated is discussed in another paper titled “From fringe to centre-stage: experiences of mainstreaming health equity in a health research collaboration”.

Applying those learnings, as NIHR ARC NWC we have moved to the next stage by focusing on equity in health and social care and working towards the implementation of an equity lens and its mainstreaming.

The following infographic has been developed by the HEMS Public Advisers Group. It illustrates the necessity for incorporating equity in research teams and the methodology used. This helps to ensure our research addresses the real needs of our community, is applied, and has capacity to reduce health inequalities. In other words, equity sensitivity and patient and public involvement are the two pillars of a sturdy building as per our illustration.

Click here to see the full HEMS infographic.

The infographic was developed in collaboration with Collab Out Loud.

You can read more about the development of the infographic in our ARC NWC Newsletter of May 2022.

We have summarised our vision in the Health Equity Mainstreaming Strategy. You can read the Executive Summary here.

To guide our work, we have translated the Health Equity Mainstreaming Strategy into a comprehensive Action Plan. Our action plan aims are organized around the following four objectives

Whilst working on materialising our action plan and meeting our objectives, our overall aim is to enable and empower those involved in health research to implement an equity lens in their work. We are acutely aware that the needs of individuals, organisations, disciplines, and sectors vary and change over time. To that extent, we make every effort to remain flexible and adapt our work to meet the needs of the ARC NWC member organisations and COREN members.

If you have ideas and/or requests of what might be helpful to you and your team, we would love to hear from you!

If you have read this far or referred to either of the above publications, you will know that our past experiences have shown the need for a shared vision. This allows for its translation into a concrete strategy for the implementation of an equity lens that cuts across our themes and underlies all our work.

We welcome enquiries on how ARCNWC could help your organisation develop and implement an equivalent strategy.

To that extent you may also find our work on ‘ARCNWC Members Approaches to Health Equity (mapping)’ and the FOR Equity Thermometer and Screening Tool resources of interest.

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