What are the health inequalities associated with long term physical health conditions experienced by African and Caribbean people in Birmingham, Lewisham and the UK?Explain

Title: Health Inequalities associated with Long Term Conditions experienced by African and Caribbean people living in Birmingham, Lewisham and the UK – a rapid systematic review

Research questions:

What are the health inequalities associated with long term physical health conditions experienced by African and Caribbean people in Birmingham, Lewisham and the UK?

What evidence-based approaches are effective at preventing and addressing these health inequalities?

Search Strategy:

This review will be conducted and presented in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) Statement (2020). Searches will be undertaken using Cochrane Library, EMBASE and MEDLINE, as well as relevant high quality grey literature. Recently published systematic reviews will be utilised in the first instance where available, and reference lists of included articles will be searched for further relevant data sources.

Keywords: The following keywords and terms will be searched:

Root terms: Black ethnic; Long-term conditions; Health inequality

• “Black African” OR “Black Caribbean” OR “Black mixed” OR Black OR Afr* Caribbean OR Minority OR Ethnic* OR Race OR “people of col?r”
• “Physical health” OR “Long?term condition*” OR “chronic condition*” OR “chronic disease” OR “ill health” OR “diabetes mellitus” OR “cardiovascular disease*” OR hypertension OR angina OR “respiratory disease*” OR asthma OR “chronic obstructive pulmonary disease” OR “neurological” OR “multiple sclerosis” OR “chronic pain” OR arthritis OR cancer OR “chronic fatigue syndrome” OR “irritable bowel syndrome”
• “Health inequalit*” OR “health care inequalit*” OR “healthcare access” OR “healthcare utilisation” OR “health disparit*” OR equit* OR “healthcare inequi*” OR health inequit* OR “health care bias” OR “health exclusion” OR inequal* OR “hospital admission” OR prevention OR prevalence OR “family care*” OR “informal care*” OR “person-centred care” OR comorbidity OR multimorbidity OR “social care inequalit*” OR “social care access” OR “receipt of social care” OR “social care disparit*” OR “social care inequit*”

Inclusion Criteria:

• Literature reporting on African, Caribbean and Black mixed ethnicity communities in the UK.
• Participants over the age of 18 years old .
• Randomised control trials, cohort studies, case control studies, intervention studies and systematic reviews aimed at addressing the above research question.
• Studies of quantitative, qualitative or mixed methods design.
• Publication date since 2011.
• Publications written in English.

Exclusion Criteria:

• Literature that does not report specifically and/or separately on African, Caribbean or Black mixed ethnicity communities.
• Studies undertaken outside the UK.*
• Participants under the age of 18 years.
• Publications with no full text available.
• Short publications without presented data such as commentaries, opinions and conference papers.
• Sources without verifiable quality such as unpublished theses, blogs and newspaper articles.
• Publication date prior to 2011.
• Publications not written in English.

*these will be recorded in case of relevance only where lack of UK data exists.

Condition being studied: Long-term physical health conditions including but not restricted to asthma, multiple sclerosis, chronic pain and irritable bowel syndrome.

Participants/population: African, Caribbean and Black mixed communities in the UK.

Intervention(s), exposure(s): Being of African, Caribbean and Black mixed ethnicity; interventions aimed at reducing chronic physical health inequalities.

Comparator(s)/control: Communities not in the specified ethnic groups.

Context: Any, including community, hospital and care settings.

Main outcome(s): Prevalence of various long term physical health conditions; Prevention of health inequalities related to long-term physical health conditions.

Additional outcome(s): the impact of inequalities on hospital admissions for chronic illness and length of stay; multimorbidity prevalence; age and gender differences; inequalities in healthcare services; impacts upon family carers.

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