Delivering a health visiting service to an East London Roma Community
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Delivering health visiting services to an East London Roma Community to promote public health.
IRAS ID
226786
Contact name
Denise Knight
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Hertfordshire
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
Roma is a term which covers groups such as Gypsies, Travelers and Sinti. In the London Borough of Redbridge, there is a Roma community, the majority of whom hold Romanian passports. The community have experienced barriers to accessing health services in the UK, in relation to their children’s health, whilst health visitors have encountered difficulties engaging the families. This study sets out to explore how health visitors can work with families to deliver health visiting services to promote public health.
The study will use a case study methodology. This methodology was chosen, to demonstrate real life phenomena, and give an understanding of the contextual conditions, allowing for a deep understanding. Multiple qualitative research methods will be used to fully explore the issues faced by both the parents of Roma children and the health visitors. The methods used will be non-participant observation and interviews. It is proposed that the researcher will observe a health visitor contact with a family, and that this will be followed by two interviews, the first with the parent or parents and the second with the health visitor. It is envisaged that between 15 and 20 heath visitor contacts with families will be observed.
Recruitment will be conducted with the help of Health visitors who have Roma children on their case load. Permission has been sought from their manager. The health visitors will identify Roma families known to them on their caseloads. The ethnicity of families is recorded in their health visitor records and as such health visitors will be able to identify families when they are booking visits and will be able to confirm if they meet the criteria.
REC name
London - Queen Square Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
19/LO/0758
Date of REC Opinion
2 May 2019
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion