Improving Black women’s health and wellbeing in the UK through the development of an evidence base

Black women in the UK face distinct health challenges, but the data needed to understand and address them remains scattered and sparse. Unlike the US, where a substantial research base exists, the UK has no equivalent—leaving policymakers and clinicians without a clear picture of how history, migration, housing, and structural racism shape Black women’s health outcomes here. This project builds that evidence base from scratch. It will first conduct a scoping review to map existing knowledge, then develop a protocol for analysing data from existing UK cohort studies through an intersectional lens—capturing how race, gender, and socioeconomic factors interact. Finally, it will test the feasibility of establishing a dedicated Black Women’s Health and Wellbeing Research Centre in the UK. If successful, the centre would consolidate fragmented findings into a single, accessible resource for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners. That could mean more targeted public health interventions, better-informed NHS services, and a systematic way to track disparities over time. The work is foundational: it creates the infrastructure for future studies rather than delivering immediate clinical changes, but without it, the UK will continue making policy decisions about Black women’s health based on US data that may not fit.