Anna Davies has been awarded a £19,185 by the Southmead Hospital Charity to investigate barriers to low dose aspirin adherence in pregnant women from underserved groups across Bristol. Low dose aspirin is recommended to prevent pre-eclampsia in women who have risk factors, to prevent pre-term birth, stillbirth, and potentially serious illness for the mother. Women from underserved groups have been identified as having greater likelihood of non-adherence to low dose aspirin, but the reasons for this are not known. Recent MMBRACE reports have identified that more needs to be done to tackle inequalities in health outcomes for pregnant women from underserved groups, to identify the reasons for them and to address biases in healthcare.

 

Anna will interview women of black or minority ethnicity, younger mothers and women from more economically deprived households who have been advised to take low-dose aspirin, to identify barriers and facilitators to taking it as recommended. She will also interview healthcare practitioners working with these women, including obstetricians, midwives, GPs and pharmacists, to establish what needs to be done to support women with risk of pre-eclampsia to adhere to recommended medication. The project will start in January 2022 and will last 12 months.