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Leeds Beckett reports finds “community champions” could help with wider impacts of COVID
It was put together by a team from the Centre for Health Promotion Research led by Professor Jane South, from the School of Health, working closely with PHE colleagues throughout.
The review looks at the role of “community champions” or health champions. These are active community members who draw on their local knowledge, skills and life experience to promote health and wellbeing where they live or work. Working at the heart of their communities, champions can help in health emergencies or in building good health in the long term.
In her national advisory role with Public Health England, Professor South has been leading research into the essential role of community champions and how their work can be supported.
Professor South said the report is incredibly timely:
“This is an important review and we have worked closely with Public Health England to pull together the most relevant evidence on community champion approaches. We hope that our findings will be applied to meet the current challenges of the pandemic and longer term, to help communities recover from the wider impacts. Good public health needs to be rooted in communities and this review provides some of that evidence.”
The report summarises the best available evidence from previous UK champion programmes focused on health improvement and from international studies of champion-type roles in communicable disease control. It discusses implications for practice, including for the pandemic response and recovery.
The review is relevant to public health leaders, practitioners and researchers and highlights the importance of community champion approaches, which are highly relevant to reducing health inequalities and can be applied flexibly to meet local needs and assets.
Earlier this year, Leeds City Council successfully launched an initiative to boost the numbers of community champions particularly in areas and communities most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
A collaborative research and academic activity agreement between Public Health England and Leeds Beckett University supports this work, which is focused on the application of community-centred approaches to reduce health inequalities.