Addressing long term cardiovascular risks after adverse pregnancy outcomes

PI Title: Dr Brook Hodges

Lead member: Keele University 

What is the problem?

Some women have health problems during pregnancy. These include high bloodpressure (hypertension, pre-eclampsia), diabetes that starts in pregnancy (gestational diabetes), giving birth too early, or having unusually small babies for the length of the pregnancy. These women are more likely to develop serious but mostly preventable health problems later in life, such as heart disease or type 2 diabetes. This risk is higher for women from certain ethnic backgrounds, especially Black African, African-Caribbean and South Asian women and those who face social and financial challenges. Women, people from minority ethnic groups and those who experience social and financial challenges are often left out of medical research. Dr Hodges is already working in this area and this project will add value to her current work.

What we will do

We want to find out how to better support women who had problems during pregnancy so they can stay healthy and avoid long-term health problems. We especially want to help those who are most at risk, including women of Black African, African-Caribbean and South Asian descent.

In the future, we will create a clear plan that supports the care of women after a complicated pregnancy, starting from when they leave maternity services. We want to work closely with women who have had these experiences to help design this plan, starting with the activity described below.

We will invite five women from Black African or African-Caribbean backgrounds and five from South Asian backgrounds to take part in two workshops—one in January 2026 and another in March 2026. (We will run a set of two workshops for each group, each of which will be facilitated by a Community Link Research Worker (henceforth referred to as Link Worker from that community)

 • In the first workshop, a member of the research team will give a short presentation about how health problems during pregnancy affect women’s health in the long term. We’ll ask the women about their own experiences and what else they want to know on the subject. The discussions will be led by the Link Worker allowing Dr Hodges to take detailed field notes during them.

• After the first workshop, we will do a review of scientific papers to answer the questions that were generated.

• In the second workshop, we will share what we found out and work together to decide what the most important topics are for future research. We will use a collaging activity to create visual displays of the ideas that are generated.

• Two medical students with an interest in women’s health and inclusive research will also attend both workshops and provide support for the activities.

After both workshops, we will produce an illustrated report to share what we learned with the participants and explain what we plan to do next. Everyone who took part will get a copy.

Proposed timelines

• Nov 25, meet with Link Worker to plan recruitment to workshops

• Jan 26 workshop 1

• Jan/Feb 26 rapid literature review based on questions generated at workshop 1• March 26 workshop 2

• April 26 produce and share summary of findings with participants and present these at DERA meeting.

Amount awarded: £1,990