Funding Success: £320k secured from the Medical Research Council to explore minority ethnic women’s experiences of menopause

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The University of Liverpool’s Centre for Ageing and the Life Course has received a £320k research grant from the Medical Research Council (MRC) for a £409.9k project to investigate the medical, social, and cultural dimensions of minority ethnic women’s experience of menopause. The research will provide guidance to aid health care interventions targeted at both menopause and later in the life course.

Very little is currently known about the menopause experience of women from diverse ethnic communities living in the UK, including their perceptions of, and interaction with, health care providers. The limited existing research on this subject suggests that barriers and obstacles to health care need exploring, both from the perspective of women, and from that of their health care providers.

Drawing on the insights of previous sociological research and informed by the need to reduce the health gap between white and minority ethnic communities, which grows wider with age, this research project takes a culturally informed approach to the menopause.

The two-year interdisciplinary research project, led by Professor Susan Pickard, Head of the Department of Sociology, Social Policy, and Criminology, and Director of the Centre for Ageing and the Life Course, will run from September 2023 – August 2025. It will focus on the lived experiences of menopause for two groups of minority ethnic women, to map the heterogeneity both within and between ethnicities, with reference to biographical life course factors, including socio-demographics, migration history, employment, and reproductive history to investigate the impact of these factors on menopausal experience.

This project also seeks to explore the approaches of consultants, GPs, and other health care practitioners to support ethnically diverse women through the menopause transition, identifying both barriers and facilitators to support interactions.

The core research team for the project will be led by Susan Pickard as Principal Investigator, and includes Dr Elham Amini and Dr Lynn Tang, also from University of Liverpool, Dr Jane Wilkinson from Liverpool Women's Hospital, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, and Dr Paula Elizabeth Briggs from Liverpool Women’s Hospital, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, and Chair of the British Menopause Society, as Co-Investigators.

They bring collective experience in the life course, cultural gerontology, medical sociology, lived experience and service users’ perspectives, inequalities and related policies, menopause, mental health, and sexual and reproductive health.

Speaking of the funding award, Professor Susan Pickard, said:

“I’m really excited about this opportunity to work with an outstanding team pursuing cutting-edge interdisciplinary research with a real potential to impact positively on women’s health and wellbeing. As a proof of concept project, moreover, we look forward to scaling up our research in a more ambitious and possibly multi-country project further down the line.”

Professor Valsamis Mitsilegas, Dean of the School of Law and Social Justice, shares:

“I would like to congratulate Professor Pickard on this outstanding achievement, which is a testament to the rigour of the School of Law and Social Justice, and Department of Sociology, Social Policy, and Criminology research, and its reach across the disciplines.”

 

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