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Showing results for tags 'Health Disparities'.
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Content ArticleIn this interview with the publisher Bloomsbury, freelance health journalist and founder of the Hysterical Women blog Sarah Graham talks about her book, Rebel Bodies: A guide to the gender health gap revolution. She discusses the recurrent themes she came across in her work as a health journalist which inspired her to set up her blog: women's experiences of gaslighting, dismissal and disbelief by the medical system. Sarah talks about how her book aims to bring together all the stories and ideas she has worked on for the last five or so years and highlight how closely they’re linked. The book also celebrates the resilience, determination, sisterhood and solidarity Sarah has witnessed from patient advocates and campaigners across the sphere of women’s health and trans health. Read Sarah's 2020 blog, Gender bias: A threat to women’s health, on the hub.
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This is part of our series of Patient Safety Spotlight interviews, where we talk to people working for patient safety about their role and what motivates them. Angela and Caroline spoke to us about how they are helping healthcare organisations consider sustainability a core part of their work. They reflect on the responsibility of both patients and healthcare professionals to ensure patient safety for future generations. -
Content ArticleThis PowerPoint presentation looks at Solent NHS Trust's approach to reducing barriers faced by minority ethnic people to accessing and using mental health services. It highlights: the conclusions of a 2019 audit the work of the patient engagement and experience team recommendations from service users wider recommendations for mental health services next steps for community engagement training plans community engagement and patient experience future plans key lessons for services.
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In this opinion piece, Kath Sansom, founder of campaign group Sling the Mesh, looks at flaws in the Government’s approach to women harmed by pelvic mesh surgery receiving financial redress. She highlights the unsuccessful case of Sarah*, who attempted to bring a clinical negligence case after suffering multiple complications as a result of pelvic mesh, to demonstrate that the national Redress Agency recommended by the Cumberlege Review is still very necessary. -
Content ArticleThis study examined the risks and patterns of childhood deaths before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this cohort study, there were 3409 childhood deaths from April 2019 to March 2020, 3035 deaths from April 2020 to March 2021, and 3428 deaths from April 2021 to March 2022. Overall risk of death was significantly lower from 2020 to 2021, but not from 2021 to 2022 when compared with the reference year of 2019 to 2020. These findings suggest that there was a significant reduction in all-cause child mortality during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic (2020-2021), which returned to near prepandemic levels the following year (2021-2022).
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Content ArticleDr Henrietta Hughes, England's Patient Safety Commissioner, discusses how the experiences of people from Black and minority ethnic groups has worsened since the pandemic and how this has impacted on patient safety, in a blog for the NHS Race & Health Observatory.
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Content ArticleThis blog for Refinery 29 by journalist Sarah Graham examines the gender health gap, a term used to describe the inequalities in treatment and health outcomes that men and women experience. She talks about the stories relating to sexism and institutional bias she has come across during her time as a health journalist, that result in poor care experiences and outcomes for women. While acknowledging that women should not have to make extra effort to be heard by the health system, Sarah offers tips for women to help them voice their concerns and improve their chances of being listened to by medical professionals.
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Content ArticleEven before the Covid-19 pandemic, rural and remote health services in England faced long-standing workforce, financial and capacity issues. This report by the Nuffield Trust explores the impact the pandemic has had on the delivery of rural and remote health services, highlighting the underlying challenges faced by these services. It outlines how the challenges faced are different for rural areas when compared to more urban areas. The authors also discuss how performance could be monitored to signal the risk of any significant service pressures over the coming months.
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Content ArticleThis blog by Robert Otto Valdez, Director of the US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), outlines the setbacks to patient safety and the healthcare workforce caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. He highlights areas of concern including workforce burnout and an increase in healthcare associated infections (HAIs) since 2020. The issues faced by the US healthcare system are not felt equally, and Valdez draws attention to a report that demonstrates worsening health inequalities. The blog includes links to evidence-based research and initiatives developed by AHRQ aimed at improving current patient safety priorities. Toolkits to improve antibiotic use. These resources are based on a “Four Moments of Antibiotic Decision Making” model that has shown success in hospitals, long-term care facilities, and ambulatory care practices. Tools to engage patients and families in making healthcare safer. Patients and families are powerful partners in improving quality and safety in hospital settings, during primary care visits, or whenever a diagnosis is made. These resources help ensure that patients’ voices are heard. Surveys on patient safety culture. This family of surveys asks healthcare providers and staff about the extent to which their organisational culture supports patient safety. Each survey is designed to assess patient safety culture in a specific setting. Diagnostic Centers of Excellence. These grants establishing 10 centres of excellence are aimed at developing systems, measures, and new technology solutions to improve diagnostic safety and quality.
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Content ArticleA joint paper by Public Health Wales and Cardiff University has identified a worrying trend of depreciating health inequalities between Wales’ most and least deprived areas. This blog outlines the key findings of the paper, including how the gap in life expectancy increased amongst both men and women between 2002 and 2020. This was primarily caused by large drops in life expectancy in Wales’ most deprived areas, including a sharp decline for women between 2018 and 2020.
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Content ArticleThe Dahlgren-Whitehead rainbow model outlines determinants of health inequity on multiple hierarchical levels, and suggests that these determinants may interact both within and between levels. Since the model was developed, the involvement of digital technologies has come to have a much greater impact on health inequities. The authors of this article suggest adapting the Dahlgren-Whitehead model to reflect these developments, proposing a model that allows formulating testable hypotheses, interpreting research findings, and developing policy implications against the background of the global spread of digital technologies.
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Content ArticleThis briefing from the Centre of Mental Health summarises evidence from six studies on the use of digital and telephone technology to deliver mental health services. It finds that using remote technology can improve access to mental health support for rural communities, disabled people or people needing a specialist service far from home. It has the potential to increase access and choice in mental health care. But it also risks exacerbating inequalities for people who are digitally excluded.
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Content ArticlePatient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) and patient-reported experience measures (PREMs) are used to assess the quality of healthcare experiences, focusing on patients. These measures help healthcare providers, commissioners and other stakeholders to make informed changes to their services. Showing the benefits of your intervention to the patient and healthcare delivery is important if you aim to have your digital product or service embedded within the healthcare system. The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities has collated guidance on how to use a patient-reported outcomes and experiences study to evaluate your digital health product.
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Content ArticleThis article by the Betsy Lehman Center in Massachusetts draws attention to research by ECRI, a US non-profit research and risk management firm, which shows that efforts to address racial inequalities in medical care need to include an examination of the way in which patient safety events are reported. Research by ECRI shows that existing patient safety reporting systems may be undercounting events experienced by patients who are Black , Latino or from other ethnic groups. It also highlights that racial, ethnic and other demographic data about patients is missing in adverse event reports from most US healthcare organisations.
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Content ArticleThis guide by the Patient Information Forum (PIF) provides practical support for translating health information. It offers tips on overcoming key challenges and links to useful resources. It is mainly focused on foreign language translation, but the principles can also be applied to British Sign Language and Braille. Research shows that in the UK, up to a million people cannot speak English well or at all, and these people have a lower proportion of good health than English speakers. Providing culturally appropriate, translated health information can help people manage their own health and take part in shared decision making. Translation is consistently raised as a key challenge by health information producers. Please note, you will need to join PIF to view this content.
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Content ArticleIn the face of record high waiting times for elective care, The King's Fund undertook research to understand the strategies that have been used to reduce waiting times in England and elsewhere in the past 20 years. Elective care waiting lists and waiting times are a product of the fluctuations in and disparities between the demand for and available supply of healthcare. Understanding the root causes of these disparities and taking corrective action to restore balance between demand and supply and optimising the conditions within the health care system is therefore considered key to any strategy to reduce waiting times and sustain them at that level.
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Content ArticleFundamentals of Health Care Improvement: A Guide to Improving Your Patient’s Care, 4th edition, is intended to help health professional learners diagnose, measure, analyse, change and lead improvements in healthcare, with the aim to shape reliable, high-quality systems of care in partnership with patients. Copublished by Joint Commission Resources and the Institute of Healthcare Improvement, this fourth edition includes updated resources, including examples, figures, tables, and tools. New to this edition is a focus on health equity and disparities of care brought to light by the COVID-19 pandemic. This focus explores the relationship between social determinants of health and how improvement methods and skills can help identify and close disparity gaps in systems of care. Also new to this edition is an expanded discussion of effective teamwork and the importance of creating multidisciplinary health care teams that partner with patients and families.
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Content ArticleFor the 20th year, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) is reporting on healthcare quality and disparities. The annual National Healthcare Quality and Disparities Report is mandated by Congress to provide a comprehensive overview of the quality of healthcare received by the general U.S. population and disparities in care experienced by different racial and socioeconomic groups. The report is produced with the help of an Interagency Work Group led by AHRQ.
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NHS Atlas of Variation Series
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Data and insight
The Atlases of Variation help to identify unwarranted variation and assess the value that healthcare provides to both populations and individuals. This is produced in collaboration with PHE, NHS England and RightCare and many other organisations. Products include Compendium atlases and themed atlases for areas such as Diagnostic Services and Liver Disease. A defining aspect of the atlases is that each of the indicator’s maps, column chart and box-and-whisker plot is accompanied by text which provides: the context for the indicator, a description of the variation and trend data, options for action and a list of evidence-based resources to support action. Interactive Atlases services can be accessed via the NHS England website. -
Content ArticleRacism, xenophobia, and discrimination exist in every modern society causing avoidable disease and premature death among groups who are often already disadvantaged. This Lancet series examines how the historic systems and structures of power and oppression, and discriminatory ideologies have shaped policy and practice today, and are root causes of racial health inequities. Furthermore, by applying a global lens and intersectional framework, overlapping forms of oppression such as age, gender, and socioeconomic status and their impact on discrimination are analysed. Interventions to address the spectrum of drivers of adverse health outcomes with a focus on the structural, societal, legal, human right, institutional and system level are reviewed. Research recommendations and key approaches for moving forward are proposed.
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Content ArticleIn this HSJ article, Gemma Dakin and George Croft from the Health Innovation Network share their reflections on the HSJ Patient Safety Congress. They highlight key themes that emerged including the need to listen to patients, service users, and carers stories, and encourage their involvement to bring about a cultural change. They argue that humanity will be central to making progress in quality improvement and patient safety.
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Content ArticleMaternal Mortality Review Committees (MMRCs) in the US are multidisciplinary committees that convene at the state or local level to comprehensively review deaths during or within a year of pregnancy. MMRCs have access to clinical and non-clinical information to more fully understand the circumstances surrounding each death, determine whether the death was pregnancy-related, and develop recommendations for action to prevent similar deaths in the future. This article summarises the data from MMRCs in 36 US states between 2017 and 2019, demonstrating variations in prevalence and cause of death according to race, ethnicity and geographical area. The data suggests that over 80% of pregnancy-related deaths examined were determined to be preventable.
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Content ArticleReducing socioeconomic inequalities in cancer is a priority for the public health agenda. In this study, cancer-specific mortality data by socioeconomic status, as measured by educational level, were collected and harmonised across 18 countries in Europe and for multiple points in time over the period 1990–2015. The study found that everywhere in Europe, lower-educated individuals have higher mortality rates for nearly all cancer-types relative to their more highly educated counterparts, particularly for tobacco/infection-related cancers. However, the magnitude of inequalities varies greatly by country and over time, predominantly due to differences in cancer mortality among lower-educated groups, as for many cancer-types higher-educated have more similar (and lower) rates, irrespective of the country. Inequalities were generally greater in Baltic/Central/East-Europe and smaller in South-Europe, although among women large and rising inequalities were found in North-Europe. These results call for a systematic measurement, monitoring and action upon the remarkable socioeconomic inequalities in cancer existing in Europe.
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Content ArticleThis report by LCP Health Analytics, looks at how inequalities across the medicine life cycle impact patients and populations. It paints a vision of what success could look like, and proposes specific, feasible calls to action across industry, health technology assessment (HTA) bodies and players that could transform the role of the life science sector in reducing inequalities and fostering healthy populations. The report identifies two key challenges in addressing health inequalities that are tractable, and where the life science sector is most likely to make commitments and contributions: Multimorbidity is increasing and embedding inequalities in health Financial incentives across health systems are not aligned with patient and population health
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Content ArticleThe Health Equity Network will launch in January 2023 and aims to build momentum for health equity across the UK. It will provide an opportunity for public and private sector organisations, community and voluntary groups and individuals to share their work on health equity and to engage across the country with others with the same interests. This article describes how the Network will work and offers the opportunity to register interest in joining.
