Digital Spaces, Art and BAME health: A qualitative study exploring how online spoken word event impact BAME health during the CoVid-19 pandemic .

Were online spoken word events effective sites for support and information for UK BAME women during the COVID-19 pandemic? This research will look at the efficacy of poetry and spoken word as coping tools for the negative health impacts of the lived intersecting oppressions of BAME women as a result of growing health inequalities in the UK, which have been exacerbated by the globalCOVID-19 pandemic. Utilising a Participatory Action Research paradigm, we will conduct semi-structured interviews and facilitate focus groups which will elucidate the overlooked, lived experiences of Black and Brown women and their health during the pandemic. We will also investigate the use and efficacy of the medium of poetry/spoken-word and online spoken-word events in facilitating the communication of experiences and vital health-related information such as vaccine access and hesitancy, between attendees and performers. The data will be thematically analysed and participatory poetic enquiry used to produce an anthology of poetry, which creatively platforms participants' salient perspectives and experiences during one of the most historic events of global health history. It is hoped that the output from this research project will fill the huge gap in understanding the health experiences of an under-researched population who have been historically impacted by growing health inequities, and disproportionality impacted by social, political and economic repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic.