KHUSH™ · South Asian workplace health
Your health is not generic.
Standard thresholds, timelines and support were set for the general population. KHUSH™ adds what is specific to you: the BMI threshold, the menopause timing, and the language to use with your GP and your employer.
KHUSH™
Knowledge & Health Upskilling for South Asian Health Equity
Why KHUSH™ exists
You already know something is off.
The BMI threshold in general use is 25. For South Asian adults, NICE says a blood test should be considered from 23. That difference is the point. Your menopause timeline doesn't match your colleagues'. Support is easier to use when it feels like it was built with you in mind.
Nearly half of the South Asian employees in one UK workplace study said they would be more comfortable using mental-health support if it were more diverse and promoted more inclusively. And if you're a South Asian man dealing with fatigue, low drive, or a family history of heart attacks at 48, KHUSH™ covers that too, with a South Asian doctor in the room.
South Asian bodies carry some specific health risks, at different thresholds and often earlier. KHUSH™ adds that specific knowledge to the support you already have.
KHUSH™ exists because your health needs are not an edge case. They are a pattern: clinically documented and culturally specific, and worth naming clearly.
2 to 4x
two to four times more likely to develop Type 2 diabetes than white European people. NICE sets the South Asian risk threshold at BMI 23, not 25.
Age 25
the age from which NICE recommends diabetes risk assessment for South Asian adults, against 40 for other eligible adults.
~47
the average age at natural menopause in studies from India and Pakistan, against around 51 in the UK. Those studies were carried out in South Asia, not among British South Asian women.
49%
of surveyed South Asian employees said they would be more comfortable accessing mental-health support if providers were more diverse and it were promoted more inclusively.
What KHUSH™ is
Knowledge & Health Upskilling for South Asian Health Equity
The word means happy, joyful, used across Urdu, Hindi, Punjabi, and Bengali. That is what this is about: not just managing the conditions you carry. Actually understanding them, naming them, and getting what you need.
KHUSH™ is an integrated health education programme built specifically for South Asian employees, men and women.
It covers hormonal health, cardiometabolic health, mental health, and preventative health together, because in South Asian bodies these conditions often sit together in the same working life. KHUSH™ covers them together rather than one awareness week at a time.
What happens
KHUSH™ is a programme. Not a one-off session. Not a webinar. Not a policy document that gets filed and forgotten. What you experience depends on what your employer has committed to, but across the programme, here is what KHUSH™ actually is.
01
Education sessions, for employees
Expert panel sessions bringing together clinicians, occupational health specialists, mental health practitioners, and lived experience advocates, all with genuine South Asian cultural understanding. These are not lectures. They are structured conversations, with time for real questions. The content covers the full picture of South Asian health: hormonal, cardiometabolic, mental, and preventative, because these conditions are connected. For men: testosterone, metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular risk, male factor fertility, mental health. For women: PCOS, perimenopause and menopause (around 47 on average in studies from India and Pakistan, against around 51 in the UK), fertility, thyroid health, and the language to use with your GP. For everyone: mental health across South Asian cultural frameworks, what izzat does to help-seeking, and what genuine culturally safe support looks like.
02
Manager training
Line managers and HR teams go through separate training: how to recognise what they might be seeing, how to have the conversation, and what they should do with it. If your manager has been through KHUSH™ training, that changes every interaction you have with them.
03
Policy and audit
Your employer's policies and support routes are read by an occupational medicine doctor and an organisational reviewer, and rated Red, Amber or Green across the six KHUSH areas. The report says what to fix first, and it belongs to your employer.
04
Resources
Employees in KHUSH™ programmes receive access to guides and reference materials they can use independently, for GP appointments, for workplace conversations, for understanding their own health.
What this means for you
Accredited employer
If you work for a KHUSH™-accredited employer
Your employer has made a specific, evidenced commitment to your health, not just general wellbeing. That means manager training, the KHUSH-6 audit, and education built around South Asian health.
Not accredited yet
If your employer isn't accredited yet
You can help change that. We've made it easy to send your HR team everything they need to make the case, written for budget holders, not for you to translate.
Job searching
If you're job searching
Join the waitlist. As employers complete KHUSH™, you'll be the first to know which organisations have made this commitment.
The accreditation
The KHUSH™ Accredited Employer mark is awarded by HHEI CIC, the asset-locked community interest company that holds KHUSH™'s delivery standard. It is not a logo exercise, and completing a package does not guarantee it.
It is awarded when the four programme requirements are completed, no KHUSH-6 area is Red at sign-off, no area has moved backwards since the first audit, and the evidence is approved by two assessors who took no part in that employer's audit or manager training.
Foundation
A twelve-month pilot: two talks, a half-day manager workshop, a self-assessment baseline and a Member year. It makes your employer a KHUSH Member.
Partnership
All six talks, a full-day manager workshop, the KHUSH-6 audit with a written report, a staff survey, and assessment for the mark.
Embedded
Partnership, plus a manager follow-up three to six months later, a written menopause action plan, and the audit run again to show what moved.
Foundation makes an employer a KHUSH Member. Partnership and Embedded lead to the KHUSH Accredited Employer mark, held for three years. Members and accredited employers will be listed on Appy + Yaar, so you can see what an employer has done, not just whether it has a badge.
Tell your employer
Be the reason your employer is here.
You can be the person who makes the case. We have made it easy. One click sends your HR team a brief written for budget holders: the business case, the cost figures, the legal and reporting context, what KHUSH™ costs, and how to start. You don't have to translate it.
The panel
Who delivers KHUSH™
KHUSH™ is delivered by HHEI's expert panel, drawn from primary care, preventative medicine, occupational medicine, mental health, and women's and men's health expertise, with specific South Asian cultural expertise. The panel includes both clinical specialists and lived experience voices, because understanding the science is only half of what this requires.
HHEI CIC is a community interest company with an asset lock. It exists to serve the community, not shareholders.
Join the waitlist
Ready to move?
Tell your employer and join the waitlist. As employers complete KHUSH™, you'll be the first to know which organisations have made this commitment, and which ones haven't.
KHUSH™ is delivered by HHEI CIC · Community Interest Company registered in England and Wales.