New £180,000 research to support the growth of community projects that tackle health inequalities

The new research is a partnership between the Centre for Health Promotion Research at Leeds Beckett, Social Life – a specialist centre of research and innovation focused on the social life of communities – and Locality – a national network supporting community organisations. It aims to build the tools and support needed for community organisations to grow their projects which tackle health and wellbeing, and secure future funding.

Lead researcher, Professor Mark Gamsu, explained: “There is already strong evidence that connecting people with arts and culture within their communities does reduce health inequality.

“It does this by acting as a gateway to further positive changes and feelings of self-worth. Activities don’t have to be grandiose or professional – they need to go with the grain of what appeals to people. For example, in the lead up to Remembrance Day, a community based ‘knit and natter’ group decided to knit poppies which were then sold. This sort of art activity has lots of benefits: it connects people, which leads to combatting social isolation, forming new friendships, and doing something creative and enjoyable that is recognised as worthwhile and helpful to others.

“Any collective activity like this has a positive impact on someone’s self-worth and wellbeing. And this in turn acts as a gateway to improve someone’s health. It might give them the headspace to address other issues in their lives – it might open up a connection to other services they can access. It can make people feel more positive, in control, and more open to other positive changes in their lives for the benefit of their health.”

The team is working with four community organisations across the UK who are engaged in work around arts and culture: St Paul’s Community Development Trust, Birmingham; Halifax Opportunities Trust; Pembroke House in Southwark, London; and Agency for Culture and Change Management (ACCM), Bedford.

The community organisations will work together to define what scaling up their projects could look like: this could be making them bigger and more substantial; transferring their success to other parts of the local area; or making projects more long-term and sustainable.

They will carry out new research – finding out what challenges the organisations face, and what changes and strategies are needed to make these sorts of activities more significant and sustainable.

Professor Gamsu said: “Critical to the research is understanding what decision-makers – including local government and NHS trusts – need in order to say yes to funding a project. The research will be a combination of our new findings and existing evidence found within policy and practice.”

The team will produce toolkits which will be available to community organisations and funders – influencing policy and strategy-making both locally and nationally.

Professor Gamsu explained: “Locality are a large national organisation who link in with hundreds of community organisations who will benefit from the tools we will produce.

“We also aim to provide the tools to enable decision-makers to be more in tune with their local community organisations – guidance and briefings to help them make difficult decisions around the allocation of funding.”

The project has received £180,000 funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). It will be completed in January 2023.

The Leeds Beckett team includes Anne-Marie Bagnall, Professor of Health and Wellbeing Evidence and Director of the Centre for Health Promotion Research, Jane South, Professor of Healthy Communities, and Dr Joanne Trigwell, Senior Research Fellow. They are also joined by Dr Janet Harris, Emeritus Reader in Knowledge Mobilisation at the University of Sheffield – an expert in working with communities.

The Centre for Health Promotion Research has extensive expertise around the role of communities and volunteering in public health and wellbeing. Researchers within the centre were recently commissioned by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and the Co-op Foundation to evaluate the Space to Connect programme – a nationwide project which aimed to help bring communities together to tackle inequality and isolation during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The academics produced a report to capture, understand, and share the experiences and learning gained during the programme – including how voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations were affected by, and adapted to, the pandemic. For more information, please visit leedsbeckett.ac.uk/spacetoconnect