Meet Anndior Boateng – DATA-CAN intern via the Black Interns initiative

This year, DATA-CAN had the privilege of welcoming two talented individuals as part of the Health Data Research UK black interns programme.

In this short interview our second intern Anndior Boateng, a third year nursing student, talks about the highlights of her time at DATA-CAN, the research she undertook and her plans for the future.

Health Data Research UK (HDR UK) brought together partners in data science, including DATA-CAN, as part of the 10,000 Black Interns initiative. The aim is to tackle the underrepresentation of Black people in the health data sector and the paid internships, during the Summer, provided young Black people with the opportunity to experience a range of careers in health data science.

Anndior, a nursing student, decided to apply for the internship to gain more experience in health data research and to deepen her understanding of how data can help to drive healthcare decisions within the NHS.

Whilst at DATA-CAN, Anndior spent her time with the commercial team and led on a research project on lung cancer and the links between health inequality, social determinants of health and epigenetics (the environmental impact on how people’s genes work). She hopes to follow her nursing degree with a masters in cancer research and feels that her experience at DATA-CAN will be very beneficial.

Anndior believes that diversity in data is incredibly important and was pleased that this is also an area of focus for DATA-CAN and Health Data Research UK. She said,

“I want to thank HDR UK and DATA-CAN for pulling this initiative together. It’s one thing to talk about wanting to make a change but, through this programme, they actually have.

“No matter what background you come from, data is something that everyone should be interested in because it plays such a big role in how decisions about our lives, communities and healthcare are made.”

Find out more about Health Data Research UK’s Black Internship Programme here.