National #ARCseminar series on health inequalities concludes with record numbers of attendees

4 November 2024

This year, the NIHR ARCs annual national webinar series (#ARCseminar) centred on health inequalities. Speakers from across the ARCs explored how health inequity cuts across life stages and places, showcasing research on health inequalities in early life, later life and between English regions. Three webinars ran in May, June and September 2024 and attracted record audience numbers. Across the three live events, we recorded over 1,200 attendances.

NIHR ARCs are the network of 15 NIHR Applied Research Collaborations funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). ARCs are a research service close to the beating heart of health and social care and support applied health and care research across the country.

Since starting five years ago, ARCs have carried out over 3,000 projects, published around 7,500 papers and collaborated with over 600 partner organisations across the country, including: over 200 NHS partners, over 100 local authorities and over 70 universities.

These events brought together researchers from different ARCs to showcase a small snapshot of some of the varied health inequality research that ARCs are engaged in.

This webinar series was very well-received and had a record attendance. For the first webinar in May, over 450 attendees joined live. The second and third webinars hosted nearly 400 attendees each.

The audience was widely spread across the country, mostly England, with a few from other UK countries. Some attendees joined from outside the UK, including from Brazil, India and Australia.

Most attendees were researchers or health and social care professionals, followed by voluntary sector organisations, local authorities and Integrated Care System (ICS) commissioners. Other attendees included students, communicators, public contributors and people working in national research and innovation infrastructure.

Only 20% of the 80 attendees surveyed across the three events were affiliated with NIHR ARCs. Moreover, 60% were neither affiliated with ARCs nor the NIHR more generally. This demonstrates that ARC research is of interest to a wide audience, including and beyond our infrastructure.

This second series of national ARC webinars was a success, both in terms of attendance and also in terms of feedback received. Almost all (96%) of the surveyed attendees said they would be ‘Very likely’ or “Likely” to recommend the event attended to colleagues.

We received plenty of positive feedback praising the content, topics, variety and speakers. Many found the seminars very interesting and informative as well as useful and applicable to their work. Many enjoyed the short talk format and the Q&A element. Others asked for the talks to be longer, with more time for questions, a testament to the quality of the speakers and the importance of the topics.

According to attendees, the events were:

“Incredibly interesting and significant areas of research with big implications”

“Informative, succinct, easy to register and easy to engage with”

Catch up

Did you miss the events this year and would like to catch up?
A summary and a recording are now available for each of the three events.

8 May 2024 #ARCseminar: Health inequalities in early life

A pregnant woman holds her hands in a love heart shape over her belly

The first webinar of the series explored: Health inequalities in early life. Three short talks covered research on health inequalities in the context of maternity, ethnicity, mental health and care-leavers. It was chaired by Prof Vashti Berry who sits within the NIHR ARC South West Peninsula (PenARC) where she leads work on children’s health.

What attendees have said about the May event:

“The range of speakers from a variety of areas, and the topics were all very current and relevant to practice”

“The level of knowledge and information shared was excellent”

“Short information-packed engaging talks on important issues – with the opportunity to ask lots of questions.”

“Very well structured and engaging presentations, enough time for questions.”

10 July 2024 #ARCseminar: Health inequalities in later life

The second webinar of the series was on: Health inequalities in later life. Three short talks covered research on LGBTQ+ inclusive care, palliative care needs of ethnically diverse patients and dementia inequalities. This webinar was chaired by Prof Marion Walker MBE, the NIHR ARC East Midlands Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Committee Chair and also the Collaboration Lead between ARC East Midlands and Health Innovation East Midlands.

What attendees have said about the July event:

“As a student and fairly new to research it was really helpful to get an overview into other studies and ongoing projects with the opportunity to ask questions. Also nice to hear about different perspectives and thought processes.”

“It was very interesting, I had not thought about inequalities in the situations highlighted. I am taking the care home training to the Director of Adult Social Care to see if this is something that they either already incorporate or would like to in their council owned care homes.”

“Expert speakers, interesting range of topics”

“Concise, academic but practical too.”

18 September 2024 #ARCseminar: Regional health inequalities

A person holding an umbrella walking along a city street

In the third and final webinar of this 2024 #ARCseminar series, we explored: Regional health inequalities. Three short talks covered research looking at place-based health inequalities. This webinar was chaired by Prof Monique Lhussier, Deputy theme lead for Inequalities and Marginalised Communities for the NIHR ARC North East and North Cumbria.

What attendees have said about the September event:

“All three presentations were excellent, giving a breadth of knowledge and research, concisely. There is a wealth of information to explore, and share with colleagues.”

“Excellent presentations and engagement style from the chair and the speakers. Brief presentations but not so short as to be meaningless.”

“The projects were really interesting and the Q&A really helpful.”

“really nice flow – all presentations fitted together really nicely and timings were great.”

“Short, sharp, focused talks from three national experts.”

Future #ARCseminar series

The first and second series of national ARC webinars were a success, both in terms of qualitative and quantitative feedback received and also in terms of attendance.
Thus, to continue raising awareness of the varied topical research ARCs deliver and to continue bringing ARCs from across the country together, we will be producing a third #ARCseminar series for 2025.

Stay in touch

Be the first to hear about the next #ARCseminar series by following @NIHRARCs on X, @nihrarcs.bsky.social on Bluesky and NIHR ARCs on Eventbrite.

For more information and to find your local ARC, see the NIHR ARCs website, and join the monthly national NIHR ARCs newsletter.