The people we work with (2024)
Vocal’s community of public contributors, people who take part in our activities, increased by 326 people between January and December 2024.
We prioritise diversity and inclusion in our work and want to understand who is involved in our work and who isn’t. We invite people to provide information about themselves, including their protected characteristics as defined by the Equalities Act 2010. People don’t have to share this information with us, and they can still join in without providing it.
Our data demonstrates that the people we work with are from a wide range of backgrounds. By collecting this data, we can understand who isn't well represented so far and focus our efforts on involving them.
Here, we present key data* that people provided between January and December 2024 and highlight differences between the data we reported on in 2023.
Gender
Over 63.5% of new public contributors are female. We have been focusing on recruiting more men to take part in our activities, and have had a 7% increase in male contributors joining us in 2024 compared to 2023.
Age
The percentage of 11-24-year-olds and 35-44-year-olds joining Vocal has increased (4.5% and 4%, respectively) compared to our 2023 data. The percentage of new public contributors in other age groups has decreased slightly: 25-34-year-olds by 2%, 45-54-year-olds by 2.5%, 64-74 by 2% and 75-84 by 4%.
Sexuality
Compared to our previous data, the percentage of people who define themselves as Heterosexual has reduced by 1.5% and the percentage of people who are Gay and Lesbian by 2.5%. There has been a 4% increase in people who are Bisexual.
Ethnicity
Our data collection form uses the same categories for people's ethnic groups as the UK Census.
In 2024 compared to 2023, there was a 3.5% increase in people from White backgrounds (contributors from White British and other White Backgrounds) and a 3.5% increase in people from Mixed backgrounds (this includes Mixed White and Black Caribbean, Mixed White and Black African, and Mixed White and Asian). There was a 5.5% reduction in the percentage of people from Asian or Asian British backgrounds
Compared to the Greater Manchester Census data, we have a lower percentage of people from White backgrounds and higher percentages of people from Asian and Asian British backgrounds, Black and Black British backgrounds, and Mixed backgrounds.
Disability
A greater proportion of public contributors who joined us in 2024, describe themselves as having a physical or mental impairment that has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on their ability to carry out normal day to day activity: 43% in 2024 compared to 30% in 2022-2023.
Next steps
We will continue to prioritise diversity and inclusion in our work and report on our progress each year. As part of the Research Engagement Network, we are working with partners across Greater Manchester to support the development of equitable and inclusive health research.
*Important information
This is a summary of data that people have provided between January and December 2024. Please note that not all people respond to all the questions and that percentages have been rounded up or down for the purposes of clarity. For more detail, please see our peer-reviewed paper, which outlines our approach in more depth and analyses data which we collected between December 2018 and March 2022.
