ABouT Research: Approaches to Build Trust in Research among Muslims in the UK
What are we trying to do?
The purpose of the ABouT Research study is to understand reasons of mistrust or trust in digital health technologies and research among Muslims and learn approaches. Researchers and technology developers may then be able to develop Muslims’ trust in research.
Why is this important?
Introducing digital health technologies can have a negative impact on health equity for ethnic minority groups. We can minimise this negative impact by engaging these groups in the early stages of the digital health technology translational pathway, but a lack of trust is a major barrier to their engagement.
Many ethnic minority groups in the UK are Muslims, and mosques hold a central place for them. Imams are religious scholars and Muslims trust their words and actions. Leveraging the existing trust relationship between Imams and worshippers, mosques have been engaged previously for health promotion but their role in building trust in digital health technologies and research has not been explored among Muslims.
The ABouT Research project will have a positive impact on the widening of participation from Muslims ethnic minority groups. Findings of this project will also support the development of equitable digital health technologies.
How are we doing it?
This project involves carrying out a series of focus groups in mosques across the UK.
Public and community involvement and engagement will support the project in evaluating our research approach as well as research outputs and their relevance to building the trust among Muslims.#
In this study, we organised nine discussions with 66 people in mosques across six cities in England. The below visual poster highlights key reasons of Muslims' mistrust in health research, and possible approaches to address their mistrust and promote their participation in health research.
Who are we working with?
Funding:
This research project has been funded via a £16,335 award from The Christabel Pankhurst Institute’s seed corn funding scheme.
More information:
Programme Manager
Dr Ross Atkinson
ross.atkinson@manchester.ac.uk