Empowering Communities: Building Trust in Healthcare and Clinical Research

We are proud to share a groundbreaking new report: Empowering Communities, a first-of-its-kind exploration into how trust in healthcare and clinical research is built, experienced, and too often broken within Black communities in the UK. 

This work matters. 

Black communities face stark and persistent health inequalities, including a 1 in 4 lifetime risk of prostate cancer for Black men. Yet trust, which is essential for accessing care, feeling heard, and participating in research, has too often been overlooked, misunderstood, or taken for granted. 

What sets this work apart is how it was developed. 

This is research created with the Black community. Through: 

• A survey of over 1,000 Black adults  

• In-depth expert interviews  

• And community workshops with lived experience at the centre  

The findings reflect real voices, real concerns, and real solutions. 

This co-creation approach ensures the insights are not only credible but actionable, relevant, and rooted in trust from the outset. 

The findings are both powerful and urgent: 

• People trust individuals but not systems
  Trust in clinicians exists, but institutions often feel distant, inconsistent, or inequitable.  

• Authenticity matters more than representation alone
  Communities want meaningful change, not token gestures.  

• Communication is everything
  Trust is built through culturally relevant, community-led communication, and quickly lost without it.  

• Racism has lasting health impacts
  Experiences of inequality and “weathering” shape how and when people engage with healthcare.  

This is the first report of its kind to centre trust as a measurable, actionable driver of health equity for Black communities in the UK. 

It goes beyond identifying problems. It provides a clear, community-informed roadmap for change highlighting practical solutions such as: 

• Community-based trust hubs  

• Culturally responsive training  

• Co-created health messaging 

• And transparent accountability measures  

This report is more than insight; it is a call to action. 

For healthcare systems, researchers, and policymakers, it offers a new way forward: one built on partnership, accountability, and trust. 

For communities, it represents something equally important:
being heard, being valued, and being central to the solutions that affect their lives. 

Join us in building a more equitable future for healthcare and research. 

AstraZeneca has provided sponsorship towards the evidence gathering, reporting and pilot testing phases of this independent programme and has had no involvement in its creation or organisation.

Read our press release here.