Changes

There's an increasing wealth of research and policy output on behaviour change in public health: a timely review of grey literature (material generated by government, or business, industry or academic communites but not published commercially) offers a useful survey. A paper from the US looks at ways to improve public health through interventions targeted at specific places (including schools, neighbourhoods, restaurants or recreational areas). Finally, a review of public health interventions delivered to whole communities assesses effectiveness, particularly in terms of impact on inequalities and also cost.

Low income Britain

A report from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation takes a long, hard look at government policy on place, poverty and welfare. The Living Through Change in Challenging Neighbourhoods project is the result of 3 years’ research in six low income neighbourhoods across the country. The report focuses on community cohesion, encouraging localism, community regeneration and enhancing opportunities to enter the labour market. A team from Durham University has also been looking at regeneration, here in the context of former coalfield communities. A key insight from this research is the way that its authors consider the relationship between well-being, community resilience and health, as an interview on their departmental blog underlines.

Going green

A new study published by CABE (Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment) assesses the "the inter-relationship between urban green space, inequality, ethnicity, health and wellbeing." Researchers looked at areas of Manchester, Birmingham and London with similar amounts of green space, high levels of deprivation and significant black and minority ethnic populations.

Working out what works

It usually appears that while it's relatively easy to identify health inequalities, finding robust evidence for what works in tackling those inequalities is rather more challenging. Some recently published articles tend to uphold that assumption. A UK-based team offers a systematic review of interventions and at a more theoretical or policy level, the Marmot review team publish an account of the use of rapid review techniques to develop policy proposals. Meanwhile, at the coalface, another article reflects bleakly on the effectiveness of partnership working and community engagement.

Community spirit

The latest reports to come from the 2007-08 Citizenship Survey have been published. They cover community empowerment and volunteering and charitable giving. The empowerment report looks at whether people think they can influence decision making at a local and national level and how far they trust the decision makers, as well as levels of civic engagement.

New Deal for Health?

More evaluation of the New Deal for Communities programme (see Fair's Fair 19 January for earlier reports), this time looking at health outcomes. There's a focus on projects in the four NDC case study areas, Fulham, Hackney, Salford and Sandwell, as well as considering more generally how NDC partnerships work and looking at how these kinds of initiatives can be sustained.

Community spirit

Examples of good practice abound in a report resulting from the Communities for Health Programme. There's also a report on the story so far from IDeA. Also new from the Communities and Local Government Department, Building Cohesive Communities: What frontline staff and community activists need to know, a guide what works in building communities for frontline workers.

A sense of place

The Place Survey gathers information on people's perception of their local area and services. Overseen by the Department of Communities and Local Government, the second phase of results have just been published. The survey also includes questions about satisfaction with decision making, information, community safety and involvement.

At the heart of the community

New guidance from the Department of Communities and Local Government aims to help local authorities embed community cohesion in their policies and practice. An accompanying study for the Department by puts the economic case for improved cohesion, which includes a brief survey of health benefits of increased cohesion. More guidance, from IDeA (the Improvement and Development Agency), looks at the importance of community engagement when planning and implementing health promotion and health services. Aimed largely at local authorities, the paper looks at the roles of the voluntary sector and local government as well as NICE community engagement guidance and provides examples of good practice.