A new research programme dedicated to improving the health outcomes of people from Black communities has launched at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
The Improving Black Health Outcomes (IBHO) BioResource, which is being led nationally by the NIHR BioResource aims to build a dedicated research resource to study the unique impacts of health conditions on people from Black ethnic minority backgrounds in the UK.
IBHO is set to play a key role in increasing the number of people from Black communities in genetic health research, helping to tackle health inequalities and improve understanding of a wide range of conditions by increasing diversity in research participation.
Through an initial partnership with Genomics England, approximately one-third of the first 7,000 to join are living with sickle cell disease, a condition predominantly impacting Black communities and heavily under-researched. As well as ensuring the lived experiences of Black communities are included in health and care research, this will also help to advance treatments and care.
It is open to participants aged 16+ from Black ethnic backgrounds and people with sickle cell disease or thalassaemia, regardless of age or ethnicity.
Participants are asked to donate a small blood or saliva sample for genetic analysis and complete a health and lifestyle questionnaire which combined can be used to build a detailed picture of the way genetics interacts with environment to influence health and disease.
They also provide consent to be invited to take part in further research studies which may require additional contributions.
In Sheffield the study is being supported by the NIHR Clinical Research Facility: Sheffield.
'I want to make a difference'
| Michael signed up to the IBHO programme to help others
Michael Omogiate, 26, a postgraduate chemistry student at Sheffield Hallam University, said he volunteered to help others.
"There's not much attention on health research for the Black community, so I hope what I'm doing is going to help people in the future. I'm really interested in research, and I want to make a difference for the Black community."
The IBHO programme is just one of several at the NIHR BioResource - funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) - which is built to connect scientists and healthcare researchers with genetic and lifestyle data from participants to deliver research more efficiently.
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