Developing inclusive co-design tools for health-related co-design in partnership with minority ethnic communities.

Background: Working in partnership with people from minority ethnic groups to develop healthcare services that suit their needs is a recommended approach to address health inequalities.

The NHS has issued guidance for community partnership work to be at the heart of the NHS service delivery in coming years. However, the current evidence on successful approaches is limited. Co-design is a method that integrates the input of those affected by a product or service into its development process.

Despite its advantages, existing co-design methods might not fully resonate with those people from minority ethnic groups who are experiencing health inequalities most significantly.

This includes those with a low understanding of health problems or those whose cultural beliefs and practices have not been taken into account in healthcare.

Furthermore, co-design was initially developed to include professional designers, who are trained to develop creative activities which are inclusive for the particular group involved, but healthcare co-design projects often do not include them. This might be more cost-effective, but potentially compromises impact when appropriate tools are not used.

Our project tackles both challenges to effective healthcare co-design by including people from minority ethnic groups, researchers, and professional designers in our project.

Aims: To co-design and drive uptake of practical guidance and tools to improve engagement of people from minority ethnic groups, particularly those of Black African and South Asian heritage, in healthcare co-design processes.

Objectives: Conduct a systematic review of existing literature on co-design methodologies in health-related service development, and their application for people from minority ethnic groups.

Interview stakeholders to review current available resources, toolkits and guidance and identify healthcare co-design issues To engage designers, communities and end-user stakeholders in developing and refining a culturally sensitive and linguistically meaningful set of resources that enables effective engagement, and collaboration with people from minority ethnic groups Use the new resources in a proof-of-concept case study to co-design a diabetes prevention intervention for women of South Asian or Black African heritage and use the learnings to refine the final resources.

Develop clear guidelines from co-design findings to foster culturally sensitive methodologies, addressing health disparities in minority ethnic groups.

Methods: The research involves three stages: exploring existing evidence on co-design methods in healthcare for minority ethnic populations; co-designing culturally appropriate co-design tools in partnership with people from South Asian and Black African backgrounds, design professionals and healthcare specialists; and using these tools in practice to design a programme to reduce long-term type 2 diabetes risk.

Timelines for delivery: The new co-design toolkit will be publicly available at the end of the project. The developed intervention will be taken forward in a further application for feasibility testing.

Anticipated Impact and Dissemination: The co-design toolkit will be widely shared with people designing healthcare services such as healthcare researchers, designers, council public health teams, and voluntary sector charities and clinicians. These groups conduct co-design, deliver training and lead community-based research to change healthcare.

The toolkit will help various groups to better develop health-related services for people from minority ethnic backgrounds.