| Project Detail |
How community involvement can improve health and promote equity
Social, economic and environmental factors significantly influence health, yet most interventions focus on individual-level solutions such as medication and patient counselling. The ERC-funded CAIR project aims to showcase the effectiveness of collaborative efforts in addressing psychological well-being, cardiovascular health and antimicrobial resistance within communities. Through this approach, the project seeks to ease the burden on primary care services, decrease reliance on medication and advance health equity. Employing various methodologies, CAIR will evaluate the existing healthcare system, engage community members in developing interventions, and assess the impact of these initiatives. Ultimately, the project endeavours to demonstrate how community involvement can build a cross-sector and more community-focused healthcare system.
Despite widespread recognition of social, economic, or environmental health determinants, health action remains heavily dominated by individual-level solutions (e.g. medication, patient counselling, vaccination). This proposal aims to stimulate changes in health system functioning by demonstrating how the cocreation of actions to address psychological well-being, cardiovascular health, and antimicrobial resistance from within the community can alleviate the burden on primary care services, reduce medicalisation and increase health equity.
The scientific approach uses mixed methods and incorporates theory from multiple disciplines. We will appraise how the current system addresses psychological well-being, cardiovascular health, and rational use of antibiotics using a population survey, a survey of patients collecting their medication at community pharmacies, aggregate health service indicators on medication consumption and primary care consultations, and qualitative methods exploring stakeholders’ perceptions. We will undertake community-based participatory research to engage citizen scientists in the cocreation of community-led actions to promote psychological well-being, cardiovascular health, and prevent antimicrobial resistance. The design, implementation, and evaluation of the actions will apply an assets-based approach and apply theories and frameworks from implementation science in an iterative manner over 3 years. Finally, we will analyse the impact of the cocreated actions, considering effectiveness and broader contextual issues such as initiative adoption, implementation, and maintenance. This will use a before-after comparison of survey indicators, an interrupted time-series analysis of health service data and qualitative analysis.
The goal is to demonstrate how the integration of community action with attention to the social determinants of health, can lead to a more rational approach to health care and ultimately improve health and health equity. |
