Project launches to tackle lack of diversity in photos of medical conditions
UWE's working with the NHS to take photos of people with darker skin tones to create a diverse, free, photo library
The University of the West of England has launched a project to tackle the lack of diversity in photos of medical conditions.
It's called 'REFRAME', and aims to reduce health inequalities by lowering the possibility of misdiagnosis.
With the project funded by NHS England, there be various events in Bristol throughout the year inviting members of the public to get involved, allowing the team to capture close-ups of a range of health conditions - from rashes and scars to amputations and jaundice.
Together, these photos will be collated into a new, free, image library - helping medics to come up with faster diagnoses and offering patients better healthcare experiences.
'If we don't have those images, healthcare professionals might not be able to recognise the signs'
Project lead Debbie Hubbard, a senior lecturer in physiotherapy at UWE Bristol, began investigating the lack of diversity in healthcare imagery after she and colleagues noticed an underrepresentation of darker skin tones in academic medical textbooks and online.
She said: “When I look for pictures of different medical conditions on different skin tones, they are biased towards people with white skin. One example is jaundice - there’s not many, if any, pictures of that condition on darker skin tones. Generally on Google Images, you may see one or two people with darker skin tones on the medical photos, but they're mostly white. We thought this could be a project that could help reduce that gap and create a library of more inclusive healthcare images.
“It’s a huge problem - if we don't have those images it means healthcare professionals may not be able to recognise the signs of disease and illness. Some conditions do present quite differently in different skin tones, for example chickenpox. This causes people to have delayed diagnosis, misdiagnosis and potentially receive incorrect treatment or no treatment. This ultimately contributes to people having a poor experience of healthcare.”
REFRAME began with a pilot photo session in St Paul’s on Wednesday 24 January.
Debbie said: “The response has been really positive. This is a collaboration with people in the community - they are essential for it to succeed and we can't do this project without them. It's for them.
“Potentially, we can impact positively on health inequalities by creating this new resource.”
All images taken of participants’ medical conditions (photographed on an anonymous basis) will be independently verified by medical professionals before being added to the catalogue of photographs and published online.
In all, the project team are hoping to capture images of 70 different medical conditions.
A second strand of the REFRAME project, running this year alongside the main part of the initiative, will focus on creating more diverse images of the healthcare workforce.
Debbie said: “If I want to put a picture on my PowerPoint slide of say, a physio working in the intensive care unit, generally the physios and the patients in those pictures tend to be white, non-disabled people. This is about being inclusive and ensuring the community is represented.”
Sarah Todd, Senior Specialist in Education for Urgent and Emergency Care at NHS England in the South West, said: “This is a landmark project to improve care for patients, by supporting healthcare professionals in clinical situations and allowing educators to broaden their teaching for healthcare students. And more directly, anyone will be able to use the images as a source of reference if they’re concerned about their own health.”
For more information, to offer a community space for a pop up photo shoot, or to sign up to be photographed visit the REFRAME website.