Celebrating research funding success for CESI and Community Led Organisations across GB and NI
CESI Fellows Dr Karen Galway and Dr Liam O'Hare are part of a team who have successfully been awarded funding from NIHR [£1.5m] to explore the impact of community led organisation on health and wellbeing.
Project: Common Health Assets - exploring how community led organisations impact on health and wellbeing in deprived areas.
Description: CESI Fellows Dr Karen Galway (School of Nursing and Midwifery) and Dr Liam O’Hare (School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work) are part of a team who have been successfully awarded funding from NIHR [£1.5m] to explore the impact of community led organisation on health and wellbeing.
September 2021 is the official start date for the Common Health Assets project, led by Professor Rachel Baker at the Yunus Centre for Social Business and Health at Glasgow Caledonian University. The project is a collaboration between researchers at GCU, Bournemouth University, Glasgow Centre for Population Health, Queen’s University Belfast and University of East London and community-led organisations in Scotland, England and Northern Ireland (Including the Colin Neighbourhood Partnership one of CESI’s Innovation Zones).
The Common Health Assets project is a mixed methods, realist evaluation and economic appraisal of how community led organisations impact on the health and wellbeing of people living in deprived areas. The team includes experts on assets based approaches, health economics, social enterprise and realist approaches to research. Methodologically the project is an exciting combination of qualitative methods, policy analysis, photovoice, Q methodology and economic evaluation.
Dr Karen Galway and Dr Liam O’Hare will be managing the NI input, along with support from local CLO partners including Colin Neighbourhood Partnership (one of CESI’s Innovation Zones) and Bogside and Brandywell Health Forum (SPRING Social prescribing).
This research is important because policy attention on community approaches to health and wellbeing has generally evolved faster than the evidence base. In order to ensure good policy, we need good evidence, developed through rigorous, theory-based studies. There is evidence starting to emerge that sustained positive health and social outcomes can only occur when people and communities have opportunities to manage their own futures, as well as having access to the skills and capabilities needed to do so.
The importance of community – community spirit, mutual aid and support – was brought home to us all during the COVID-19 pandemic. The project will help focus attention on the importance of community to public health generally; especially important as we rebuild, and imagine, what may be required to cope with future crises.
Follow our project updates on the web page https://www.commonhealthassets.uk/ and on Twitter: @AssetsCommon
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For further information, please contact Dr Karen Galway K.Galway@qub.ac.uk