Community engagement and involvement
Representing the Women’s Health Network at the International Women’s Day 2023 Community Roadshow in Brent, organised by the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) Northwest London’s (NWL) Ethnicity & Health Unit in partnership with the local voluntary sector.
Sharing information about women’s health research being done at Imperial College at the International Women’s Day 2023 Community Roadshow in Brent, organised by the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) Northwest London’s (NWL) Ethnicity & Health Unit in partnership with the voluntary sector.
Dr Sherrianne Ng discussing her research on the vaginal microbiome with members of the public at the Great Exhibition Road Festival 2023. A memory game was designed to attract visitors across all age groups, whilst creating healthy competition. Fastest time wins!
Activities for all ages. Prof David MacIntyre guides a young learner through making their own microbiome on a petri dish using slime, beans, food colouring and glitter. More than 400 petri dishes were taken home.
Featured were the lab coats designed by MSc Science Communications student, Emma Tegg, as part of her final honours project on Women in Science. The lab coats represent the themes: “The Anatomy of Exclusion”, “Motherhood versus Womanhood” and “A View from Nowhere”.
Featured were the lab coats designed by MSc Science Communications student, Emma Tegg, as part of her final honours project on Women in Science. A description of her work.
The George Institute’s Ana Alden and Melanie Almonte from the National Heart and Lung Institute educate the public on the internal and external anatomy of the female reproductive system, using felt cut-outs. Great Exhibition Road Festival 2023.
Artist Dan Cimmerman creates a live artwork inspired by the work of Dr Natalie Shenker. Dr Shenker’s research into the benefits of human milk for prematurely born babies led to her founding the Human Milk Foundation to support equitable access to donor milk. Great Exhibition Road Festival 2023.
Community engagement and involvement (CEI) is integral to the activity of the Women’s Health Network, and our activities in this area are constantly evolving and expanding. Since our inception, we have provided guidance and new connections for CEI to individual research projects and contributed to wider societal engagement events, such as the annual Great Exhibition Road Festival.
We are continually seeking out opportunities to involve the public in our work. If you are a researcher, local community member or patient and would like to engage with the Women’s Health Network, please get in touch.
Multi-layered approach
Advisory board
Alongside our internal leadership team, the Network is governed by an Advisory Board, with representation split equally between community representatives, internal staff and external partners. Community representatives include three women from The Bridge, a women’s health engagement group working in the White City and surrounding areas. Members of the group share both a passion for women’s health and a connection to the local area, and dedicate themselves to raising awareness around women’s health issues and cultivating relationships between researchers, the health system, and the local community. If you want to find out more about them, their work is showcased in this fantastic ‘Humans of Health Research’ story. You can also follow them on Twitter.
Project-specific CEI
Many members of the Women’s Health Network already engage with members of the public and patients in their research. Some are conducting research into developing a better understanding of the mechanisms and potential of community engagement in women’s health research – asking questions like “How does engagement work? What works for whom, in what way and in what context?” (see interesting article '£25 and a biscuit: Women’s Health Research and Public Engagement in the UK' on the current quality of engagement in women’s health, written by our co-Leads, Alison Perry and Dr Ed Mullins).
Over time, we aim to facilitate new connections between women in the local community with an interest in a particular area of health and researchers conducting work in that area.
Societal engagement
Since our inception, we have taken part in multiple societal engagement events – all with the goal to showcase and share the women’s health research being conducted at Imperial.
International Women’s Day Health Roadshow
Network members attended NHS England’s Integrated Care Systems Research Engagement Network Development (ICS REND) Community Roadshow on International Women’s Day 2023 in Brent, hosted by the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) Northwest London’s (NWL) Ethnicity & Health Unit, in partnership with the local voluntary sector. This roadshow aims to increase local community engagement in research.
During the roadshow, attendees could engage in a variety of activities, such as receiving free health checks, hearing from local businesses focused on women’s health and wellbeing, and talking to Imperial researchers about their work and opportunities for involvement. Dr Carinna Hockham, Co-Lead of the Women’s Health Network, was there to represent the network and discuss the importance of improving women’s access to research.
Great Exhibition Road Festival 2023
The Great Exhibition Road Festival (GERF) is a free public event held annually in collaboration with the Science Museum, Natural History Museum and the V&A amongst others, to celebrate all things art and science. In 2023, the event saw over 50,000 people attend, many of whom interacted with the Women’s Health Network of Excellence stall on the wonders of the female body. Led by Dr Sherrianne Ng and Prof David MacIntyre from the Institute of Reproductive and Developmental Biology, members of the public learnt about the vaginal microbiome and its important role in shaping health and disease, with activities to attract visitors of all ages. Melanie Almonte and Ana Alden used felt cut-outs to educate the public on the internal and external anatomy of the female reproductive system.
Others will have witnessed a live painting session inspired by Dr Natalie Shenker’s research on donor human milk, and mused over reimagined lab coats by interdisciplinary artist and MSc Science Communications student, Emma Tegg, whose work explores how the UK healthcare system is failing women and underrepresented groups – and considers what can be done to help. We are now planning our showcase for the 2024 Festival!
Great Exhibition Road Festival 2024
We have two stands planned for GERF 2024. The first will be an expanded version of the 2023 stall on the wonders of the female body, covering additional topics such as female hormones and their role throughout the life course, and the potential uses of menstrual blood in gynaecological diagnoses. The second – “Portraits of Us – Representations of Women” – aims to enable creative and open conversations around the representation, identity and invisibility of women in health systems and health research.
We are looking for volunteers to help out on the stalls on Saturday 15th June and Sunday 16th June 2024. Get in touch if you want to be involved!