Healthy communities working together – Research and Knowledge Exchange Awards 2024

The Centre for Health Promotion Research (CHPR) was established in 1997 and is one of the leading academic institutions for health promotion research in the UK. I’ve worked with and in CHPR since 2005 and I’m very proud to have been its Director since 2019, working with a fantastic team of researchers who are all passionate about tackling health inequalities. Working with local communities is central to our values and overall approach, which is based on meaningful participation and a social model of health.

Our work loosely falls into three interconnected themes:

• Healthy communities – which focuses on community centred approaches to health and wellbeing, active citizenship, volunteering and participation.
• Health inequalities – working with people and groups who are vulnerable and disadvantaged, and therefore at highest risk in terms of health inequalities.
• Evidence and evaluation – CHPR staff are at the forefront of developing methodology and guidance in public-health related evidence synthesis, evaluation of community-led complex public health interventions, participatory and peer research, knowledge exchange and the embedded researcher model.

Members of CHPR have been involved in developing national guidance on community engagement and community-centred approaches to health and wellbeing, and we apply this evidence-based expertise to our research and evaluation work with local community organisations.

This film about the CommUNIty project outlines our overall ethos on how we work together with local voluntary and community sector organisations, and the impact that this is having.

Some recent examples of our work include:

• The ARCHES project – Adapting, expanding and embedding community and culture into health ecosystems.  This Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)-funded project was part of the national ‘Mobilising Community Assets to tackle health inequalities’ programme of research. Working with Locality (the national umbrella organisation for community hubs) and Social Life, we carried out participatory case study research with four community anchor organisations, including Halifax Opportunities Trust, to build a picture of how they work, what ‘scaling up’ means to them, and how they can best be supported to have more impact.
• Gipton Old Fire Station Five-year evaluation -  We carried out a mixed methods evaluation and social return on investment analysis of the asset transfer of the Gipton Old Fire Station to Leeds Community Foundation, and the impact that it’s had on the health and wellbeing of the local community. The evaluation found a significant impact on the wellbeing and social connections of the local community.

Asset Based Community Development in Leeds - With Leeds City Council and community builders, we co-produced an evaluation of the ABCD pathfinders in Leeds, which showed that they were having a positive impact on local communities in terms of building social connections, active citizenship and value for money.

Social Determinants of Health in Wakefield - This National Institute for Health Research (NIHR)-funded Health Determinants Research Collaboration, with Wakefield Council, St George’s Community Centre and Prosper Wakefield into determinants of (poor) health is seeking to address the deep-seated health inequalities that have led Wakefield residents have significantly lower healthy life expectancy than those living in other parts of the country.

CHPR submitted two highly scoring impact case studies to REF2021. You can find out more about our work on our website.