Abstract
Aims
To develop a position statement which identifies research priorities to address health inequalities in diabetes and provides recommendations to researchers and research funders on how best to conduct research in these areas.
Methods
A two-day research workshop was conducted bringing together research experts in diabetes, research experts in health inequalities, healthcare professionals, and people living with diabetes.
Results
The following key areas were identified as needing increased focus:
• How can we improve patient and public involvement and engagement to make diabetes research more inclusive of and relevant to diverse communities?
• How can we improve research design so that the people who could benefit most are represented?
• How can we use theories from implementation science to facilitate the uptake of research findings into routine practice to reach the populations with highest need?
• How can we collate and evaluate local innovation projects and disseminate best practice around tackling health inequalities in diabetes?
• How can we best collect and use data to address health inequalities in diabetes, including the harnessing of real-world and routinely collected data?
• How could research funders allocate funds to best address health inequalities in diabetes?
• How do we ensure the research community is representative of the general population?
Conclusions
This position statement outlines recommendations to address the urgent need to tackle health inequalities in diabetes through research and calls on the diabetes research community to act upon these recommendations to ensure future research works to eliminate unfair and avoidable disparities in health.
To develop a position statement which identifies research priorities to address health inequalities in diabetes and provides recommendations to researchers and research funders on how best to conduct research in these areas.
Methods
A two-day research workshop was conducted bringing together research experts in diabetes, research experts in health inequalities, healthcare professionals, and people living with diabetes.
Results
The following key areas were identified as needing increased focus:
• How can we improve patient and public involvement and engagement to make diabetes research more inclusive of and relevant to diverse communities?
• How can we improve research design so that the people who could benefit most are represented?
• How can we use theories from implementation science to facilitate the uptake of research findings into routine practice to reach the populations with highest need?
• How can we collate and evaluate local innovation projects and disseminate best practice around tackling health inequalities in diabetes?
• How can we best collect and use data to address health inequalities in diabetes, including the harnessing of real-world and routinely collected data?
• How could research funders allocate funds to best address health inequalities in diabetes?
• How do we ensure the research community is representative of the general population?
Conclusions
This position statement outlines recommendations to address the urgent need to tackle health inequalities in diabetes through research and calls on the diabetes research community to act upon these recommendations to ensure future research works to eliminate unfair and avoidable disparities in health.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | e15024 |
| Number of pages | 11 |
| Journal | Diabetic Medicine |
| Volume | 40 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| Early online date | 19 Dec 2022 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Apr 2023 |
Bibliographical note
AcknowledgementsFinancial support for the workshop was provided by Diabetes UK. Our thanks go to all participants for providing their time and expertise to the event (Appendix I).
Kamlesh Khunti is supported by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Applied Research Collaboration East Midlands (ARC EM) and the NIHR Leicester Biomedical Research Centre (BRC).
Keywords
- Diabetes
- health inequalities
- patient and public involvement
- research
Access to Document
- Chan_etal_DM_Addressing_Health_Inequalities_VoR
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes. © 2022 The Authors. Diabetic Medicine published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Diabetes UK https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/