Exploring health inequalities in primary care: ethnicity, antibiotics and respiratory health

Anna Pathmanathan

18 April 2024

First-year University of Bristol PhD student, Anna Pathmanathan, is exploring respiratory health outcomes and antibiotic prescribing trends among different ethnicities. She shared information about her project during one of the People in Health West of England’s researcher coffee catch-ups.

Anna is part of the Centre for Academic Primary Care and her PhD project is looking at the relationship between ethnicity, antibiotic resistance and respiratory health outcomes.

During the project she will:

conduct a statistical analysis of healthcare records
interview doctors and patients
put together her own patient and public involvement group.

She wants to understand whether:

health inequities linked to ethnicity exist
ethnicity has an impact on developing antibiotic resistance
antibiotic prescribing is driving differences in respiratory health outcomes.

Anna said:

“We don’t know a lot about the relationship between ethnicity and antibiotic resistance. However, we do know that the rate of antibiotic resistance in the white population is lower than in Asian and Black ethnicities.

“I plan to look at a system-wide data set for Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire to help me understand how people travel through primary care into secondary care. This will allow me to see the system as a whole and look at the antibiotics people are being given.

“During interviews, I will be exploring whether people feel they are being given the treatment they need and whether doctors feel they’re able to deliver the healthcare they want to deliver. If my statistical analysis discovers any differences between ethnicities in prescribing, I will use my interviews to try to uncover why this is.”

Watch the session:

This talk was part of the NIHR ARC West regular researcher coffee catch-ups run by People in Health West of England, where members of the public can hear about local research projects and give researchers feedback on their work. Coffee catch-ups are informal and designed to give researchers and public contributors a chance to interact. Public contributors are encouraged to ask questions, learn about, and get involved in projects in their area.

Coffee catch-ups usually take place on Tuesdays or Fridays between 10.00-11.00am or 5.00-6.00pm.

Contact Carmel McGrath or see the NIHR ARC West events page for upcoming sessions.

Further information

About the Centre for Academic Primary Care

The Centre for Academic Primary Care (CAPC) at the University of Bristol is a leading centre for primary care research in the UK, one of nine forming the NIHR School for Primary Care Research. It sits within Bristol Medical School, an internationally recognised centre of excellence for population health research and teaching. Follow on X: @capcbristol and on LinkedIn.