Black History Month and Beyond: a Conversation with Donnarie Goldson
Black History Month is an important opportunity to celebrate the contributions of Black communities across London, but honouring our communities must extend beyond October.
For Donnarie Goldson, the London Sexual Health Programme’s Equity, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EEDI) Lead, this year’s theme, ‘Honouring our communities’, reflects a long-term commitment:
“There’s something about that theme not just being about for one month... [It’s a] theme for us to just live by.”
Honouring our communities for me, means recognising differences in identity, circumstances and experience. London’s communities are not homogeneous, and neither are their experiences of sexual and reproductive health.
“When I hear the word communities, one of the main things that I pull from it is difference.”
This difference should be valued, and it should not determine whether someone can access care, feel understood or experience good health outcomes.
When difference becomes inequality
Significant inequalities continue to affect Black communities across sexual and reproductive health. For example:
In 2023, Black Caribbean Londoners had the highest rate of new STI diagnoses of any ethnic group in London - more than twice the rate among the combined White ethnic group. [1]
Evidence also shows higher rates of new and late HIV diagnoses and lower PrEP uptake among Black African and Caribbean communities. [2]
The 2026 MBRRACE-UK Saving Lives, Improving Mothers’ Care data shows a maternal mortality rate that was 2.7 times higher for Black women compared to White women. [3]
Individual behaviours or choices alone do not explain these inequalities. Rather, structural inequity, stigma and racism within healthcare can all affect engagement with early prevention, prevention and care.
Measuring progress through data and lived experience
However, identifying disparities through data is only the starting point. We also need to understand what sits behind the figures, and how these inequalities change over time.
As London works towards the 2030 HIV ambition, this means defining progress through both quantitative and qualitative measures.
While data is important in showing where inequalities exist; lived experience is what reveals how they are felt, and crucially whether change is reaching communities. For me, it is the emphasis on listening which must form part of a clear feedback loop: people should be able to see how their experiences shaped decisions, how services responded, and what happens next.
Different needs require different responses
Importantly, equitable healthcare does not always mean providing the same service, in the same way, to everyone.
While representation matters, inclusive care goes further: people’s culture, circumstances and individual needs must be understood and respected.
“You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression.”
For someone who has faced barriers to care, a first interaction can determine whether they return, seek further support or recommend the service to someone else.
We must also remember that Black communities cannot be treated as a single, homogenous group. Since ethnicity intersects with disability, language, income, sexuality, parenthood and other aspects of people’s lives, and needs can vary between, and within, London boroughs, our response to healthcare disparities needs to be multifaceted. This fundamentally involves an intersectional lens, reminding us that Black History Month forms one part of LSHP’s wider commitment to EEDI in how we listen, design services and assess impact.
Putting community-led approaches into practice
One initiative I want to highlight is the Skin Like Mine prevention and testing programme. Funded by Do It London and delivered through One Voice Network organisations across London, the community-led programme provides HIV testing, prevention information and supportive conversations in trusted, culturally relevant settings.
Running from July 2026 to June 2027, its work includes:
information about PrEP and U=U;
one-to-one and group conversations; and
signposting to NHS and community sexual health services.
Skin Like Mine puts Black voices, leadership and lived experience at the heart of its work to reduce stigma and build trust; which, to me, is the very ethos of ‘honouring our communities’.
From recognition to meaningful change
To truly honour our communities, we need to celebrate what makes them distinctive while challenging the inequalities they experience.
In practice, that means:
listening to people’s experiences;
looking honestly at who services are, and are not, reaching;
considering whose experiences are missing from the data; and
using what we learn to shape service design, commissioning and delivery.
Black History Month brings these conversations to the forefront, but the commitment cannot end when October does.
Recognition matters. Meaningful change is how we demonstrate that we have listened.
Or, put more simply,
“Every little chip counts.”