The study
Health Legacy is a research programme dedicated to understanding and improving the health of people from diverse communities in the UK.
Why are we doing Health Legacy?
People from some backgrounds are more at risk of developing certain diseases, including diabetes, high blood pressure and kidney disease. Very often these people are underrepresented in research which means that the treatment available for these diseases might not work best for them. Health Legacy aims to bring the benefits of genetic and health research to diverse communities to guide more precise and equitable approach to prevention, diagnosis and treatment of disease.
Health Legacy will do this by:
- Inviting people from Black African, Black Caribbean, South Asian and White European backgrounds to participate in Health Legacy
- Partnering with 3 existing studies to achieve this:
- Black Health Legacy
- Genes & Health
- Exeter 10,000 (EXTEND)
Research participants from these 3 studies will be invited to join Health Legacy for health assessments and interview studies. This will allow us to understand in detail the links between our genes and health, and how this may be used to improve future healthcare. Health Legacy will start by working on common long-term health conditions like diabetes, high blood pressure, and kidney disease, but later expanding to other health issues.
Why is Health Legacy studying genes?
Your genes are like an instruction manual to help make proteins, the building blocks of our bodies. Genes control how our bodies look, grown and function. We inherit different versions of our genes from our biological parents. Nearly all human beings have the same genes arranged roughly in the same order and more that 99.9% of you are the same as everyone else.
However, everyone’s instruction manual is just a little bit unique, and where your ancestors come from is one of the factors that makes your genes different. Genetic differences influence our risk of developing certain diseases and our response to particular medication. Healthcare is changing, and information on gene differences can now be used to improve the prediction, prevention, diagnosis and treatment of many health conditions. We want to make sure that people from diverse communities don’t miss out on these healthcare improvements.
Who funds and sponsors Health Legacy?
- Health Legacy is funded by the Wellcome Trust and receives additional funding support from the NHS Research Delivery Network.
- Queen Mary University of London is the Sponsor and Data Controller for Health Legacy.
- Health Legacy is supported by a large network of NHS and community partners. For more information about our partners, please visit blackhealthlegacy.org