Symptom perception of “breathlessness” and impact on healthcare access in culturally diverse populations (360G-Wellcome-319149_Z_24_Z)

The overall aim of this project is to understand the impact of ethnicity, other sociodemographic factors and underlying multiple long-term conditions on health service utilisation and diagnostic outcomes in a population presenting with breathlessness in a primary care setting in England, followed by a deeper exploration of the underlying reasons for any differences or inequalities detected observed, including perceptions of the symptom of breathlessness and healthcare access for breathlessness. The PhD will take a mixed-methods approach and will be carried out in two phases, with the first phase being a quantitative phase using a Clinical Practice Research Datalink database, which will be followed by a qualitative phase, which will involve group interviews with individuals from different cultural backgrounds, as well as individual interviews with clinicians.