IJPDS International Journal of Population Data Science

Parents, health professionals, service providers and commissioners in Bradford came together to identify what matters most when it comes to research on maternal and child health in their community. A collaborative workshop brought together diverse voices from across the region to shape the research agenda for ‘Born in Bradford for All’, a project linking information collected by public services for mothers and babies born in Bradford, a city in the North of England.

During a two-hour online workshop, attendees identified 17 important and urgent research priorities that reflect the concerns of local families. Top priorities included mental health support for mothers and infants, understanding the lasting effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on families, making sure everyone can access services fairly, and supporting parents with feeding their babies.

Bradford is a diverse city, and like many places, faces challenges with health inequalities. ‘Born in Bradford for All’ brings together information that is already collected by hospitals, GP surgeries, schools, local authorities and other services as part of everyday work. Linking this information together helps build a fuller picture of what mothers and babies need and whether local services are working well for everyone. However, researchers needed guidance on which questions would make the biggest difference to local families. Rather than researchers deciding alone what to study, this workshop made sure that the people who know Bradford best, from workers who support families every day to parents themselves, would drive research priorities.

The workshop, details of which are published in the International Journal of Population Data Science (IJPDS), was carefully designed so everyone could take part easily and those who attended did not need to know anything about data research beforehand. The session helped everyone understand how information from health, education, and social care services could be used for research, while sharing their own views about what matters locally.

The identified priorities are already shaping research projects and have been shared widely amongst interested networks. Other local areas have since adopted this workshop approach to identify their own community priorities. Beyond guiding research, the workshop had wider benefits: it helped local services understand how the information they collect daily can improve care and planning, sparked new partnerships to improve data quality, and gave policymakers clear insight into what matters most to Bradford families. This demonstrates that engaging communities in deciding research priorities creates benefits beyond the research itself, it strengthens the connection between services, data, and the people they serve.

Lead researcher Dr Hollie Henderson said: "These priorities came directly from people who understand Bradford's families best. By involving parents alongside professionals, we've ensured that information local services collect about people every day is being used to address the real challenges affecting families and communities. This isn't just about generating academic papers, it's about creating evidence that can improve services and ultimately make a difference to families' lives in Bradford and beyond."

 

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Dr Hollie Henderson, Equalise Senior Research Fellow, Bradford Institute for Health Research, BRI, Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, and Visiting Research Fellow, University of York, UK

Henderson, H., Bridges, S., Bryant, M., Ciesla, K. and Pickett, K. (2026) “Identifying Local Priorities for Research with Linked Routine Data: An Online Workshop Method”, International Journal of Population Data Science, 11(1). doi: 10.23889/ijpds.v11i1.3045.