Health navigation to improve access to healthcare for migrant women
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Improving access to healthcare for migrant women: an exploration of the functioning and impacts of health navigation on maternal and women’s health
IRAS ID
261570
Contact name
Christy A A Braham
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Sheffield
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 3 months, 3 days
Research summary
Health navigators are people who link patients to the services they need. They are used in communities where access to healthcare is poorer. Commonly, these include migrant communities or disadvantaged people. Health navigators try to address each service users’ individual barriers to accessing healthcare, including transport, language and money. This specific piece of research will investigate health navigation for migrant women who are pregnant and in need of NHS maternity care. We seek to understand service users, navigators and healthcare professionals’ experiences and perceptions of health navigation services, look at the characteristics of navigators (and how this may affect navigation as a service), as well as how navigation services are designed and operated. In order to do this, research will be undertaken at an NHS maternity care service using health navigators. Migrant women using the service, the navigators delivering the service and health professionals who indirectly witness the service will all be invited to take part in individual interviews in order to explore their perceptions and experiences of navigation. In addition to this, analysis of documents relating to the design of the navigation service will be completed, in order to explore how the service is run on the ground.
This application is to gain approval to conduct this piece of research at an NHS service entitled 'Haamla Service' (based at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust). This research is part of a broader PhD project, which also includes a piece of research using the same methods currently being conducted in non-NHS community settings (based at a local volunteer-run charity), for which ethical approval has already been granted from the University of Sheffield (reference 025447).
REC name
Social Care REC
REC reference
19/IEC08/0038
Date of REC Opinion
30 Sep 2019
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion