Common Health Assets
Common Health Assets: an evaluation of the health and wellbeing impacts of community-led organisations
Dates: September 2021 - August 2024
Funder: National Institute for Health Research
The aim of this research is to find out how community organisations' use of ‘assets based approaches’ improves health and wellbeing, and how that might differ in various contexts. Where we find positive effects, we will examine whether those effects can be applied elsewhere (‘scaled up’), and how community organisations can find ways to survive (sustainability).
Assets based approaches are about ‘doing with’ (rather than ‘doing to’) and working with communities to build on their strengths, mobilising the knowledge and skills of local people. We will study community-led organisations, or ‘CLOs’, in areas that are often called deprived or disadvantaged - because of poverty, poor physical and social environments and lower health outcomes. CLOs work with communities to offer a range of activities and services, such as walking or cooking groups, local campaigns, welfare advice, language classes, and community gardens or cafes and more.
Our research addresses the following questions:
- Do CLOs impact on health and wellbeing? By what mechanisms and in what contexts are outcomes achieved.
- Which approaches are scalable, and which are specific, local solutions?
- What are the key issues for sustainability of CLOs?
We will work with 15 CLOs based across Scotland, England and Northern Ireland. We will interview and run workshops with their staff and stakeholders, to find out what they already know about how programmes work, and what data they already have about their impact. We will measure outcomes, before and after participation to see what effect these activities have on people.
An economic analysis will estimate costs and compare those with benefits to participants. A panel of individuals with experience of living in our CLO communities will also be established to ensure the appropriateness and relevance of the research, and the interpretation and reporting of findings.
For more information, including the details of our research methods and project partners, please visit our project website
Sustainable Development Goals
