LGBTQIA+ Perinatal Research

The Priority Setting Partnership (PSP) for LGBTQIA+ people on pregnancy, birth, infant feeding and the first year after birth – completed in October 2025!

Top 24 questions

In partnership with the James Lind Alliance, LGBT Mummies, LGBT Foundation, Transparent Change, UK Mutual Aid, the University of Oxford National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit, The University of Oxford Knowledge Exchange Seed Fund and the British Academy's BA/Leverhulme Small Research Grants Programme.


What is a Priority Setting Partnership (PSP)?
Priority Setting Partnerships (PSPs) identify and prioritise evidence uncertainties, or ‘unanswered questions’ in a particular area - in this case LGBTQIA+ perinatal care (which means care around pregnancy, birth and the year after birth). Unanswered questions were gathered from LGBTQIA+ people, supporters and health professionals. These questions were prioritised by LGBTQIA+ people, supporters and health professionals, showing which are the most important to focus on for future research. This kind of prioritisation helps to make the case for funding future research, and helps researchers look at the most important questions.

What were the steps?

In late 2024 we ran a survey for LGBTQIA+ people, supporters and health professionals to submit their unanswered research questions about fertility, pregnancy, birth and the year after birth, including infant feeding, loss and abortion.

366 people submitted 1166 questions

We combined questions that were on the same topic to make 48 summary questions.

We checked the evidence to see if any questions had been answered (one had), and removed these.

In 2025 we ran another survey asking LGBTQIA+ people, supporters and health professionals to choose their Top Ten priorities from the list of 47 questions. 214 people chose their Top Ten.

This helped us choose 20 questions to take to a final workshop. 4 more questions also stood out as being more important than the remaining 23 questions.

A group of LGBTQIA+ people and health professionals worked together to put the top 20 questions in order of importance.

See the list

Who ran the Priority Setting Partnership (PSP)?

The PSP was led by a steering group, made up of LGBTQIA+ people and health professionals. You can find information about who was on the steering group here. The organisations on the steering group were LGBT Mummies, LGBT Foundation, Transparent Change and UK Mutual Aid. The funding came from the University of Oxford (Nuffield Department of Population Health Pump Priming fund and Knowledge Exchange Seed Fund), and from the British Academy’s BA/Leverhulme Small Research Grants Programme. The James Lind Alliance helped to guide the steering group through the PSP process, as independent facilitators. Click the links to read our protocol and terms of reference.

Who are the James Lind Alliance?

The James Lind Alliance (JLA) is a non-profit making initiative, established in 2004.  It brings patients, carers and clinicians together in PSPs for many different topic areas. A James Lind Alliance advisor helps the steering group to run the PSP, and chairs the final prioritisation workshop. For more information on the JLA priority setting methodology watch this short video or find out more at https://www.jla.nihr.ac.uk/.

Who We Are

Dr Jenny McLeish (she/her) is the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit/Oxford University project lead.