Improving access to asthma care for children and young people and caregivers from underserved communities

Project Highlights

26,000 UK children require hospital admission with a severe asthma attack each year. The majority are from poor and ethnic minority backgrounds. You will be working in one of the UK’s most ethnically diverse cities within a department specialising in ethnic health and gain unique research skills working with different ethnic and socioeconomic groups to understand their health needs.

You will be instrumental in helping to better understand barriers to access to good quality asthma care for children and young people from underserved communities.

This is an NHS priority area and your work will have the potential to influence UK healthcare policy.

Project Summary

Background: ​Improving access to healthcare with the aim of achieving better health outcomes is a key NHS pledge https://www.england.nhs.uk/about/equality/equality-hub/patient-equalities-programme/edc/. We know from work nationally and our own work that children from underserved communities (including ethnic minority and socioeconomically deprived backgrounds) have worse asthma outcomes and higher rates of hospital admissions with asthma attacks. However, primary care practices in more deprived areas of Leicester have smaller proportions of patients on the asthma register. An important unmet need is understanding the barriers and facilitators to better access to high quality asthma care for children and young people of ethnic minorities and socioeconomically disadvantaged families.

The overarching aim of this project is to better understand why underserved communities find it harder to access high quality asthma care to design strategies that can be tested in a clinical trial.

Research Plan:

​Objectives: 

1.      Compare differences between ethnic groups and between families with high and low index of multiple deprivation for:

                                      i.     Coding for asthma on GP records 

                                    ii.     Attendances at the annual asthma review 

2.      Differences in asthma control and adherence to preventer medication

3.      Explore barriers, health beliefs and facilitators of better asthma care in different ethnic groups, families with different socioeconomic status and primary care healthcare workers.

You will work on an already funded project exploring use of a Smart Digital inhaler in asthma management for high-risk children (aged 5 to 16 years). https://sbrihealthcare.co.uk/news/the-accelerated-access-collaborative-through-sbri-healthcare-awards-2-7-million-to-respiratory-disease-innovations/. This study will involve 10 Leicester primary care practices to identify high-risk children on the asthma register and high-quality asthma reviews will be conducted by separate researchers including lung function testing. Children and young people will then be offered digital smart inhaler monitoring for 6 months.

To understand barriers and facilitators to good asthma care in underserved groups, you will conduct qualitative interviews with:

·        teenagers and families from ethnic minorities

·        families from high- and low-income backgrounds

·        practice staff including nurses and GPs

Expected outcomes and impact: ​During this exciting and important project you will gain a detailed understanding of differences in asthma care in underserved communities in Leicester that can likely be extrapolated nationally. You will also gain excellent mixed methods research skills in the supportive and vibrant environment of the Centre for Ethnic Health Research in one of the UK’s most ethnically diverse cities. 

Entry requirements

Applicants are required to hold/or expect to obtain a UK Bachelor's Degree 2:1 or better (or overseas equivalent) in a relevant subject before the study start date. 

The University of Leicester English language requirements apply.

Eligibility

Open to UK and Overseas* applicants.

*Please refer to the funding section

*Applicants holding EU Settled or Pre-Settled status, we will require a UK government share code so that we can verify your status (The share code we require starts with S). Please email your share code together with your application ID to [Email Address Removed] once you have submitted your PhD application.

Informal enquiries

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To apply

Please refer to our BRC web page, follow the application information under How to Apply section and use the online application link at

https://le.ac.uk/study/research-degrees/funded-opportunities/brc