Agnes Agyepong, parent engagement programme manager at Best Beginnings and Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust Maternity Voices Partnership Chair discusses why Black women are not engaging in research and what can be done to change this?

What are data and technology? How do they impact Black lives in our health systems?

We were often taught to look for symptoms, such as rashes, in a way that I knew wouldn’t appear on my own skin.'

In England and Wales, nearly a fifth of people come from a BAME (Black, Asian and minority ethnic) background. The mental health of BAME communities is important because people from these communities often face individual and societal challenges that can affect access to healthcare and overall mental and physical health.

“As a queer Black woman living in a white supremacist world, the traumas I endure and the impacts on my health are never-ending.”

Actor David Harewood's BBC documentary explores why people of colour are more likely to die from Covid-19.

Within mental health services, Black people tend to have poorer experiences of mental health services, in terms of access, treatment and outcomes. Institutional racism has been cited as one of the main causes for the differences.

There is much controversy about why some people have poorer life chances, and specifically poorer experiences of health and mental health. One explanation for ethnic inequalities seen in the mental health system, and in society in general, is racism. The place of racism as a cause of mental illness, or factor that leads to poor health, is contested. This is mainly as the evidence is emerging but also as there are strongly held views, both by people who do not want to talk about racism and those that do.

Racism is a systemic issue that pervades every aspect of life in the United States and around the world. In recent months, its corrosive…

Machine learning programs trained with patients’ own reports find problems that doctors miss—especially in Black people. Full study here: https://go.nature.com/3pnOwWP

Birthrights is convening an inquiry into racial injustice in maternity care, led by an expert panel with barrister Shaheen Rahman QC as Chair.

Childbirth rights group supports examination into disproportionate health outcomes

Black women more likely to die in pregnancy or childbirth

Disparity with white women shows need for action, doctors say, despite slight improvement in mortality rate