People from ethnic minority backgrounds living in Stamford have the opportunity to shape the future of research into health and social care and reduce inequality thanks to a new study.

The National UK REPRESENT survey aims to identify the health and social care areas that are important to ethnic minority groups and how these communities view research practices.

It is part of the REPRESENT study funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) East Midlands and supported by the Centre for Ethnic Health Research.

Researcher Dr Yogini Chudasama, an epidemiologist from Leicester Real World Evidence Unit, said: "We are doing this survey study because it is very important for different people to be part of health research. This ensures that it benefits everyone and represents the wider population of whom 14 per cent are ethnic minorities. Therefore, we aim to identify the health and social care areas that are important to ethnic minority groups and how these communities view research practices."

This survey will take about 10 to 15 minutes to complete, and some questions are mandatory. Every response will be anonymised and personal identification information will not be collected. Also, the information collected will not be shared with other groups or organisations but will be managed by the University of Leicester only.

Participants can stop the survey at any time, but researchers will keep the information you already shared for the purposes of the research project as outlined here. At all times this research study will comply with GDPR.

Professor Kamlesh Khunti CBE, Director of NIHR ARC East Midlands and Professor of Primary Care Diabetes and Vascular Medicine at the University of Leicester, said: "People taking part in research are usually older, have higher levels of education but less likely to come from an ethnic minority background. This means that a lot of research studies are not very relevant for most people.

"Many reasons stop people from other ethnic backgrounds from joining in research. This can include not knowing about the study or the process, not being taken care of in the way they like, or the research may not interest them."

In addition, the project lead researcher, Dr Winifred Ekezie, a Public Health Epidemiologist whose research focuses on improving health care services for under-served groups, said: "To improve health and social care services and reduce health inequalities, the most important care needs of all people groups need to be considered for appropriate health and care interventions to be developed. Hence, we would like all groups in the UK to be represented in this health and social care research priority-setting project to ensure future research are more relevant to them."

NIHR ARC East Midlands funds vital work to tackle the region's health and care priorities by speeding up the adoption of research onto the frontline of health and social care. The organisation puts in place evidence-based innovations which seek to drive up standards of care and save time and money.

NIHR ARC East Midlands is hosted by Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust and works in collaboration with the East Midlands Academic Health Science Network. It has bases at the University of Leicester and the University of Nottingham.

You can take part in the survey online.

Further details on the study can be found here.