A team in the School of Social Sciences led by Dr Tom Nadarzynski, including Dr Deborah Husbands, Professor Tom Buchanan and Professor Damien Ridge, has received £240,838 in funding from NHSX’s AI Health Lab and the Health Foundation for work to address racial and ethnic health disparities in sexually transmitted infections (STIs) using artificial intelligence (AI).
Dr Nadarzynski and team aim to raise the uptake of screening for STIs/HIV among minority ethnic communities through investigating and developing an automated AI-driven chatbot which provides advice about sexually transmitted infections. The research, conducted in partnership with Positive East, University of Southampton and Brighton & Sussex Medical School, will also inform the development and implementation of chatbots designed by Positive East for minority ethnic populations in public health more widely, and within the NHS.
People from ethnic minority groups are disproportionately affected by STIs and HIV, and experience challenges accessing sexual health services due to discrimination, stigma and a reluctance to address sensitive issues related to their sexuality. Home-based and online STI/HIV screening services are increasingly used by the NHS, however they may not take into account the cultural and social distinctiveness of minority groups and the difficulties they face. This can lead to lower uptake and use of clinical interventions, and therefore contributes to enduring health inequalities.
In partnership with Positive East, Dr Nadarzynski and team have designed and piloted an automated chatbot called ‘Pat’, to improve knowledge of STIs/HIV and promote online screening services. For their chatbot to make accurate recommendations, users need to disclose personal information about their sexual behaviours. The research team now seek to make their chatbot culturally and socially appropriate, acceptable and easy to use among Black and ethnic minority communities.
The researchers will explore the views of minorities and healthcare professionals to customise their chatbot, and assess the extent to which users would be willing to disclose personal and health-related information. A simulation exercise will assess the chatbot’s overall performance with minorities, as well as intentions to test for STIs/HIV and the uptake of an HIV test.
The NHS AI Lab introduced the AI Ethics Initiative to support research and practical interventions that complement existing efforts to validate, evaluate and regulate AI-driven technologies in health and care, with a focus on countering health inequalities. The £1.4 million funding award to Dr Nadarzynski’s team, along with three other projects, is the result of the Initiative’s partnership with The Health Foundation on a research competition, enabled by NIHR, to understand and enable opportunities to use AI to address inequalities and to optimise datasets and improve AI development, testing and deployment.
Talking about the research, Dr Tom Nadarzynski, lead researcher and Senior Lecturer in Health Psychology, said: “Artificial intelligence offers invaluable opportunities to improve health and wellbeing of underserved and often marginalised social groups. We need to understand how this technology can best benefit all of us, so that no one is left behind.”
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