Engaging with patients and the public to increase diversity of those involved in research 

Public/patient engagement with research describes the variety of ways in which patients/public can get involved in the design, conduct and dissemination of research. Involvement and inclusion of patients/public from diverse communities as key members of the research team will ultimately result in better quality research which will likely have a greater impact on the target population.

In 2018, our Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) groups consisted of <20 members that were 100% White British, and mainly males aged 60 or older. We needed to improve the diversity of our groups to ensure that our PPIE teams were more representative of the West Midlands region. To achieve this, we actively recruited from our local population.

We did this by:

• holding events at public venues such as the Birmingham Library
• developing relationships with community groups or specialist charities (e.g. BRAP)
• using different methods of communication (e.g. appearing on Unity FM – a radio station with a mainly Muslim audience). 

This effective engagement strategy has meant that our PPIE groups are much more diverse. As of 2022, we now have >85 members, of which:

• >15% identifying as Black British, Pakistani, Indian, Chinese or Eastern European
• 70% reporting as female
• 30% reporting as under 60 years of age.  

In addition to recruiting a more diverse group, we have retained our PPIE members by offering a variety of training and development packages, as well as a wide range of involvement opportunities – from being co-applicants on grant applications to presenting research projects to national audiences.  

Our now very diverse group of patient/public contributors have helped us in a number of projects that we would not have been able to take forward previously, including:

• Birmingham BRC was involved in the NIHR Race Equality Framework pilot, and we had patient representatives from the target heritage groups on our over-sight committee and as part of the pilot team. 
• Our patients have participated in specialist “roundtable” discussions around health inequalities, including race, Women’s health and the historical roots of mistrust in clinical research. 
• Patient partners have helped us to develop a toolkit for researchers so that they can consider the target patient population when designing their research.