This study seeks to understand how refugees, asylum seekers and migrants (R/AS/Ms) make use of ‘community assets’ within their local areas to support their health and well-being, with a specific focus on accommodation, food and nutrition, and access to wider services.
By understanding how diverse social determinants of health (SDOHs) impact the well-being of R/AS/M communities – and, by extension, wider populations – this research aims to generate an evidence-based conceptual framework for transdisciplinary interventions in healthcare that allow community assets to be efficiently integrated. In turn, these will support cost-efficient, accessible, scalable services, delivered locally and regionally by Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) and their key partners.
Being able to access cultural, natural and community assets including health services, legal advice centres, ‘green’ and ‘blue’ spaces such as parks and rivers, cultural and community hubs, faith and belief resources, and practical support such as local food banks or skills-swaps, is known to support health and well-being, and improve health outcomes across multiple domains.
However, many such resources are also unevenly distributed, and may in any event be dependent upon people having access to regular, reliable and affordable public transport or a private vehicle, as well as the linguistic skills to negotiate services.
This project, which is funded under Phase III of a UKRI national programme, Mobilising community assets to tackle health inequalities sets out to understand how, and in what ways, diverse assets across food/nutrition, accommodation, and broader/other services can be mobilised to address health disparities and ultimately be scaled up more widely.
We are undertaking our study in eight areas across the East of England (Essex, Cambridgeshire, Peterborough, Norfolk and Suffolk) comprising rural, urban and coastal areas, and four London Boroughs, to enable us to compare and contrast access to services and how they are utilised by diverse refugee, asylum seeker and migrant populations.
We are working with four core groups of refugees/asylum seekers in all study areas (Afghans; HongKongers; Syrians and Ukranians), and, in each area, one EU and non-EU migrant group, who vary depending on demographics and size of local population. As such, our ‘migrant’ groups vary from recently arrived Indian nationals to elderly Italians who have been in the UK for decades, Nepalese- and Portuguese-speaking migrant workers from South America, Romanians, Iranians, Iraqis, Somalians, Bulgarian Roma, Nigerians, and a number of other populations.
We take as a starting point that poor health experienced by R/AS/M results from inequitable access to services and opportunities across the SDOH, including language barriers, accommodation challenges, employment, education, frequent (often enforced) movement, poverty, and discrimination. Our study focuses on the experiences of these populations, in the belief that if these most vulnerable groups can be supported in accessing, engaging with, and potentially repurposing community assets to improve health and well-being, then we can learn lessons which benefit society more widely and other populations at risk of health exclusion, including older people, those with disabilities, or people experiencing poverty and isolation.
We will develop ‘community forums’ in each study area and train community researchers to support us in data-gathering. We are utilising a range of arts and creative practices including storytelling, photography, and locally-selected activities including forum theatre and music-making, to capture experiences of R/AS/M populations, as well as more ‘traditional’ methods such as interviews, focus groups, and mapping of services, with the support of communities and a wide-range of stakeholders.
Ultimately, we will be undertaking cost-benefit analysis and working with local service providers and a broad range of stakeholders to explore ‘what works’ in reducing health inequalities, and what transferable good practice may look like across field-site localities to enhance well-being.