IDM has been appointed to deliver a major new data analysis project among Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities to help understand their views, attitudes and experiences of COVID-19.
The public health initiative, which has been commissioned by The Cheshire and Merseyside Health and Care Partnership (C&MHCP), is aimed at helping shape future communications and interventions to reduce the devastating impact of COVID-19. It has been launched in response to data showing that ethnic minority communities are disproportionately affected by the virus.
Research into survival rates among confirmed COVID-19 cases showed that people of Bangladeshi ethnicity were twice as likely to die from the virus, when compared to people of white British ethnicity. People of Chinese, Indian, Pakistani, other Asian, Caribbean and other black ethnicity had between a 10 and 50% higher risk of death when compared to white British.
IDM is contributing its expertise with bespoke data intelligence, including creating a fresh ethnic profile of the region. They are working alongside the communication agency Influential and cultural fieldwork specialists, Ethnic Opinions, which will support the outreach programme and ensure the tone of all communications resonates with the target audience.
Neil Murray, IDM’s CEO, said: “One of the many challenges posed by the pandemic and as we move forward to vaccinations in the general population, is understanding why ethnic minority groups have an elevated level of COVID-19 infection and how they are responding to the crisis. Factors that need exploring include the greater likelihood of living in larger household sizes comprised of multiple generations, having lower socioeconomic status and being employed in frontline roles where working from home is not an option. This is an important piece of work that will focus the power of data science and analysis on the issues and generate evidence-based insight with the result that potentially excluded communities can be engaged and receive the support they require.”
