The move to become a broader Race & Health Equity Group

Having previously operated as a partnership group established to tackle to emerging issues of the Covid-19 pandemic the work of this group has now evolved to working together to address wider race and health issues.

Due to a reducing demand for urgent Covid-19 responses the group renamed as the Bristol Race and Health Equity Group and considered other existing areas of race and health equity challenges to utilise the expertise and learnings of the group from its time operating as a Race Equality Covid-19 Steering Group, you can read our evaluation report here.

You can learn more about the impact of our work during the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as being able to access our findings and reports through this link.

The first meeting of the newly titled group was held in November 2022. In its new remit, the group agreed to work to a process of receiving submissions for key priority areas of focus for the group’s time and attention to then give group members to opportunity to vote to agree on chosen priorities on an annual basis.

In 2023 the group focused on maternal and perinatal mortality, establishing Project SMILE which ran a number of focus groups to listen to the experiences of Black and minoritised mothers and birthing people.

Current Priorities

In January 2024, the group identified two new focus areas which were:

• Increasing immunisations with focus on Measles, Mumps and Rubella (MMR) and Human Papillomavirus (HPV) – Due to variable immunisation coverage mortality and morbidity from vaccine preventable infections remains a significant challenge both within the UK but also internationally. Equality in immunisation is an important way to address health inequalities. To protect the whole population of Bristol we need to have at least 95% uptake of immunisations.
• Local Race and Health Data Development – Aiming to work with partners across the city to co-create first for the city by producing a race & health data source and picture accessible to all One City partners to help identify gaps in ethnicity data in key health conditions in Bristol. The aim being to create a resource to help to drive more informed decision making and resource allocation.
• Delivering a race and health focused event to engage with the whole city and region – The group committed to delivering a large scale race and health focused event for all city and regional stakeholders to amplify the lived experiences and challenges faced by communities. This session focused on a ‘life course approach’ to race and health inequity and also convened strategic system leaders to respond to questions from attendees and panel discussions on how the city will respond to the lived experience challenges highlighted.

The group meets once every other month to discuss how to work together to make sure that the policy recommendations are adopted and implemented across Bristol. The group determines key priorities to address on an annual basis and also uses its platform to allow all stakeholders and public health leads to come and share information on emerging issues and opportunities for partners to collaborate on relating to race and health issues.

Membership

The group is well represented by stakeholders across the city and is open to all race and health stakeholders and organisations from all sectors across the city and we welcome new members. The group meets every month.

We also always welcome all organisations/groups wishing to share challenges and opportunities relating to race and health equity matters with a wider audience.

The group is currently co-chaired by:

• Dr Joanne Brooks FRCPCH,

Consultant Community Paediatrician, Winner of Sirona Award for Excellence (Equality and Diversity), Sirona Equality Diversity and Inclusion Programme Manager- Lead for Senior Leadership Workstream, Sirona Care and Health, Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health Ambassador for BNSSG Integrated Care Board.

• Huda Hajinur,

Chief Executive Officer, CaafiHealth.

An active group in Bristol’s Race Eco System

The group also forms an active part of Bristol’s wider Race Eco System in tackling race inequity across the city by working with many other of Bristol’s active race focused partnerships and groups to ensure we have a platform to raise important and current race and health matters to wider networks for their support and engagement. You can find out more about this broader race eco system by visiting our interactive tool here.

Race and the City Events

To deliver our projects we work directly with many broader city partnerships and groups through the ‘Race and the City’ programme. This is an annual programme of race focused events for the whole city covering a range of key strategic themes to enable whole city conversation and action as well as good practice sharing. Our group has engaged with all events to date and has also played a lead role in directly delivering three ‘Race and City’ events titled ‘A Spotlight on Race and Health’. These events have been open to all sectors and organisations, as well as to all members of Bristol’s communities to actively share some of the city’s biggest challenges and to enable as many stakeholders as possible to join in the discussion on how best we can work together to tackle these challenges and to explore opportunities of working together more effectively.

We have had over 750 people attend across our three Race and Health focused ‘Race and the City’ events and we look forward to leading further such events in future as we see these events as an excellent vehicle to get all stakeholders engaged and helping to share thoughts and ideas in addressing inequalities.

European Capital of Innovation Awards for 2024

The work of our group also played a role in Bristol being one of six cities shortlisted as semi-finalists for the prestigious European Capital of Innovation Awards for 2024. Bristol saw off competition from 27 other cities to be shortlisted, with our bid focusing on our work towards racial equity in Bristol, using innovative whole-city approaches. While we didn’t make the final three, the panel described our submission as completely ‘unique and brave’ and the work and impact of the Race and Health Equity Group was included as part of the bid and presentation.

This Award recognises cities that open their governance practices to experimentation and aim at being role models for other cities. The 2024 semi-finalists, selected by a panel of independent experts, were:

• Bristol
• Espoo (Finland)
• Tallin (Estonia)
• Tampere (Finland)
• Torino (Italy)
• West Midlands Combined Authority

Our shortlisting for this stage has provided a highly positive example of collaboration reflecting the great work being done across the city.

Get Involved

To engage with the group and to find out more please contact the Equality and Inclusion team at Equalities@bristol.gov.uk