Make Every Contact Count More: The co-design and preliminary evaluation of an enhanced abdominal aortic aneurysm screening programme to improve uptake and offer additional risk factor/co-morbidity ide
This project is funded by the Manchester Academic Health Science Centre (MAHSC) Applied Health and Care Research Group, a joint initiative between MAHSC and NIHR ARC-GM.
What are we trying to do?
This project aims to increase participation in Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm (AAA) screening by reducing inequalities, improving engagement, and making AAA screening more widely available in the Greater Manchester (GM) region. We also want to screen for additional risk factors during testing, allowing us to identify potential health risks early so we can connect individuals with appropriate community-based support.
This project is an important part of the "Manchester Amputation Reduction Strategy" and the Greater Manchester Integrated Care Partnership Strategy, both of which aim to help people stay well and detect illness earlier.
Why is it important?
Deep in our stomach, there's a big blood vessel, and in older men, it can develop a bulge called an "Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm" or AAA. If we don’t catch this bulge early it can burst and be very dangerous, even causing death.
Thankfully, there's a test that can catch it when it's easier to fix. This test is offered to 1000s of men every month, but not everyone turns up, and we want to understand why.
Our goal is to work with these men, and the people who do the tests, to improve the process, so that more people want to take the test.
How are we doing it?
The study has three parts:
- We are talking to men who aren't taking the test to understand how they look after their health and what they think about going for tests.
- We are working with the men and the people who do the tests to make sure we can check for other health problems when they decide to take the AAA test.
- We will make improvements based on what we find out. Then we will try out these improvements in a few places to see how well they work and how we can encourage even more people to take the tests, especially those who find healthcare difficult.
The research team
- Principal Investigator - Dr Sarah Prenton (University of Salford)
- Dr Naseer Ahmed (Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust)
- Angela Aldridge (Manchester Local Care Organisation)
Who we are working with
- Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust
- Manchester Amputation Reduction Strategy (MARS Project)
- Manchester Local Care Organisation
Funding
This research project received an award of £39,325 from the 2024-2025 MAHSC Applied Health and Research Group.
Useful information
Contact information
Dr Sarah Prenton
Lecturer in Physiotherapy, University of Salford
S.Prenton1@salford.ac.uk