Seeing skin differently: Eczema, acne and psoriasis in skin of colour

Today, we’re speaking to Dr Eliza Hutchinson, a dermatology registrar and academic clinical fellow based at the Centre for Applied Excellence in Skin and Allergy Research at the University of Bristol.

Title of paper: Eczema, acne, and psoriasis in people with skin of colour: a qualitative UK-based study

Available at: https://doi.org/10.3399/BJGP.2025.0720

This study is the first, to the authors’ knowledge, to explore the experiences of living with an inflammatory dermatosis specifically in people with skin of colour. We generated eight themes important to participants: delayed or missed diagnosis; preferences regarding healthcare professionals; lack of online information and social media use; misunderstandings in cultural communities; concerns about treatment and lack of research; complementary medicine use; experiences and impact of dyspigmentation; and challenges with structural racism. These findings offer insight into the complex experiences and challenges faced by UK adults with skin of colour living with eczema, acne, and psoriasis. Our practical points for primary care clinicians are a step towards facilitating mutual understanding and improving care for people with skin of colour.

Transcript

This transcript was generated using AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Please be aware it may contain errors or omissions.

Speaker A

00:00:00.560 - 00:00:53.150

Hi and welcome to BJGP Interviews. I'm Nada Khan and I'm one of the Associate editors of the BJGP. In today's episode, we're speaking to Dr. Eliza Hutchinson.

Eliza is a dermatology registrar and an academic clinical fellow and she's based at the Centre for Applied Excellence in Skin and Skin Allergy Research at the University of Bristol. We're here to talk about the paper she's just published in the bjgp and the paper is titled Eczema Acne and Psoriasis in People with Skin of Color.

A Qualitative UK based Study. So, Eliza, it's lovely to meet you and thanks again for joining us to talk about this paper.

But before we talk about the paper itself, I'm just wondering what made you specifically interested in researching skin conditions in skin of color?

Speaker B

00:00:53.550 - 00:01:34.700

Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

So I think people with skin of color have been and still are massively underrepresented in kind of medical curricula, learning resources, clinical trials. And I certainly remember when I was at medical school, I don't think I had any teaching on diverse skin tones at all.

And so it was as I sort of learned more dermatology, I just became very aware that they are so underrepresented. And I think earlier work in this area, I really tried to improve education for medical students and healthcare professionals around skin of color.

That was kind of my starting point.

And then I realised actually there's very little, if anything actually on the experiences of people with skin of colour, which is kind of what led me to this project.

Speaker A

00:01:35.820 - 00:01:38.380

And you work in dermatology, is that right?

Speaker B

00:01:38.460 - 00:01:42.300

Yes, yes, I'm a dermatology registrar based in the Bristol Bath area.

Speaker A

00:01:42.540 - 00:02:06.890

Great. So it's wonderful to have your expertise in this especially.

And we may get into this sort of about sort of your perspective from secondary care as well, looking back into general practice as well. But this paper focuses on eczema, acne and psoriasis and these are conditions that we see a lot as gps.

So why did you feel that this was an important area to look at for people with skin of colour?

Speaker B

00:02:07.290 - 00:02:41.470

Yes, I mean, as you said, we know that skin conditions are super common.

They make up over 14% of GP consultations and eczema, acne and psoriasis are some of the most common inflammatory skin conditions we see and we know that they have a significant burden on everyone that experiences them.

But I think particularly in people with skin of colour, we already know that these people experience kind of increasing things like Dispigmentation, so skin tone getting lighter or darker from their skin condition. And yeah, I think I just wanted to focus on some of the more common conditions that are seen kind of day to day in primary care.

Speaker A

00:02:42.110 - 00:02:54.890

And this was a qualitative study and you emphasized that you really wanted to understand the experiences of people here. So talk us through a bit what you did. You spoke to people who had these conditions and had skin of colour?

Speaker B

00:02:55.050 - 00:03:26.060

Yes. So we recruited using online methods for a couple of reasons, but really wanted to get kind of diverse range of experiences from across the uk.

So we started off with an online survey and that was open to people of all skin tones. And we have written this up as a separate paper which should be out hopefully in the next few months.

But based on these responses, we then kind of purposefully recruited people with skin of color to take part in an online one to one interview. And so we spoke to 20 different people with skin of colour as part of this.

Speaker A

00:03:26.460 - 00:03:40.300

And I think one of the really interesting things that came out and is running as a strong theme through the paper is that skin conditions can present really differently in skin of colour. Can you explain a bit about what that means in practice as well?