Featured image credit: Rochdale Observer

Male life expectancy from birth in Rochdale is 2.7 years lower than the national average, and healthy life expectancy is 4.2 years below the national average. How can it be fair that where you live impacts your amount and quality of life so dramatically?

We know that health inequalities across Greater Manchester are significant, with income, ethnicity and region all contributing to this imbalance. We also know that some communities are more likely to lack trust in healthcare and healthcare professional. People from Pakistani and Bangladeshi backgrounds experience the worst health of any other ethnic group, with a significant burden of two or more long term health conditions, including high rates of diabetes, stroke, and respiratory disease.

Researcher and Geriatrician, Dr Louise Tomkow, was working on a project in Rochdale around real-life experiences of end of life care with dementia when local people told her they were keen to learn more from health professionals about common medical conditions.
Deeplish Community Centre has been providing support to a population predominantly of South Asian heritage in one of the most socioeconomically disadvantaged areas of Greater Manchester for decades.

Working with Sohail Ahmed and Mohammed Tariq from the community centre, Dr Tomkow delivered a seminar on ‘Stroke Awareness and Prevention’ at the centre. Around 40 attendees were shown how to perform the ‘FAST test’, as late presentation to the hospital in the event of stroke is a particular issue facing Rochdale’s population. Since then, two further sessions have been delivered; Dr Ruth Wiggans spoke about ‘Staying well in winter’ including COVID-19, Flu and vaccinations and Dr Piyush Pushkar led a session on ‘Depression and Anxiety’ which included a presentation in Urdu by Talking Therapies and the next session will be delivered by Dr Anisa Jafar, an A+E doctor, in July.

Dr Tomkow and the team have recently been awarded funding from the recent Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health to support the seminars. Attendees share a meal after the events. They intend to develop their outreach activities establishing and developing networks of healthcare and research.

Dr Tomkow said “The project aims to address ethnic health disparities in Greater Manchester by providing culturally sensitive health education forums. More broadly, we hope that building relationships in the community will break down some of the existing barriers to healthcare we know face minoritized communities, by building trust. The most important thing to us is the co-design of the project – we work closely with Sohail and Tariq to understand how we can provide content and delivery which is useful, accessible, and acceptable to the community. Project sustainability is also key and we aim to involve medical students and allied health professionals in our future sessions. If you would like to come along, get involved, or deliver a session – please do get in touch!”

For further information please contact Louise.Tomkow@Manchester.ac.uk

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