Bias in Health and Care Research

Research is vitally important. It broadens our understanding and helps us to make important decisions.

Research in the health and care sectors enables services and professionals to:

• diagnose diseases earlier or more accurately
• provide life-changing treatments
• prevent people from developing conditions
• improve health and care for generations to come
• ensure everyone has a better quality of life

However, much research in the health and care sector is heavily biased towards males of European descent.

If you have read the latest autumn/winter issue of the Level 3 Update Magazine, you will have seen that the government has acknowledged that we have knowledge gaps around women's health, because research into women's health conditions such as endometriosis has been underfunded. Moreover, research has failed to look at the way in which women are affected by common conditions such as cardiovascular disease.

As an example of disparities regarding ethnicity, we can look at the way in which funding for research into sickle cell disease, which predominantly affects Black people, is not prioritised.

This bias in research is complex, and can be attributed to various factors. These complexities are explored in the three excellent TED talks below.