Cornwall health determinants research collaboration

Building from collective experience to better understand the causes and consequences of health inequalities in Cornwall
Truro cathedral and city

Cornwall health determinants research collaboration

Building from collective experience to better understand the causes and consequences of health inequalities in Cornwall
Title: Cornwall health determinants research collaboration (HDRC)
Funded by: NIHR
Funding amount: £5,016,560.91
Location: Cornwall, UK
Dates: January 2024 – December 2028
PI: Dr Eunan O'Neill
Co-Is: Associate Professor Anna Mankee-Williams, Associate Professor Emma Bland, Associate Professor Penelope Welbourne, Professor Catherine Leyshon, Professor G.J. Melendez-Torres, Professor Gordon Taylor, Professor Sheena Asthana
Contracting organisation: Cornwall Council
 
People's health and wellbeing are impacted by the physical and social environment that they live in, and rural, coastal and peripheral characteristics pose a challenge to equitable and effective service delivery. In Cornwall, there is a 5.5-year gap in life expectancy between the poorest and richest neighbourhoods, with 17 neighbourhoods among the 10% most deprived in England. 
The Cornwall HDRC will build from collective experience to better understand the causes and consequences of health inequalities that matter most to people in Cornwall. 
To ensure that everyone in Cornwall has the opportunity to thrive, it is important to understand which factors have the biggest impact, who they affect, what the possible solutions are, and how well the solutions can work locally to improve people's health and wellbeing. 
High-quality, place-based research can help create new knowledge that will improve the lives of people in Cornwall and inform areas facing similar issues nationally, but there needs to be some change to the existing system. 
The HDRC will create a space for knowledge to be shared and grown through creative processes of collaboration. A core component of the HDRC will be a Citizen Research Group co-created by communities and partners from the sector and resourced by the HDRC. It will allow people in Cornwall to contribute to the decisions and activity of the HDRC in a way that works best for them. This may include sharing personal experience to highlight areas of the system that are working well or need change, being involved in working groups to create solutions to shared problems or developing skills to do research. 
Through the HDRC, we hope that people in Cornwall – both Council staff and community members – will gain skills and be supported by appropriate resources and infrastructure to make meaningful and lasting changes to the way that health inequalities are tackled in Cornwall, with the ultimate goal being for a reduction in the difference in life experience between people who are most and least well-off in Cornwall.
 
 
 

Objectives

  • Build and embed research culture, capacity and capability to develop effective evidence-led solutions to the causes and consequences of health determinants and inequalities that matter most to people in Cornwall
  • Inform practice and decision making by building and embedding research culture and capacity across Cornwall council and its partners
  • Develop a research collaboration that combines skills, knowledge and expertise from academic, voluntary sector (VCSE), community, and local authority partners to reduce inequalities in the way that determinants of health impact people's lives in Cornwall
  • Generate robust, translatable, research outputs that inform practice and decision-making in Cornwall and beyond.
Telephone box on Cornish council estate

Partnerships and collaborations

Cornwall HDRC will grow from strong, strategic partnerships across local authority, academia, VCSEs and Cornish residents with the ambition for Cornwall Council to gain a research-active workforce and ability to shape and drive research activity. 
Universities will bring expertise in key research topics, theory, and methodologies, and will gain understanding of the issues facing Council officers, helping to align research questions with their needs. 
Cornwall's VCSEs will bring in-depth knowledge of, and connections with, local communities and will gain skills for effecting innovative methods for evidencing impact. Communities will bring essential expertise borne of experience and will gain skills, experience and genuine influence on research priorities. 
 
 
 
 

Timeline and milestones for delivery

Year 1 

  • Recruitment of core Cornwall HDRC team 
  • Co-creation of the Citizen Research Group 
  • Setting of shared culture and priorities.

Years 2–3 

  • Delivery of first three shared learning opportunities 
  • Development of local authority research infrastructure 
  • Active learning through HDRC evaluation activity.

Years 3–4 

  • Submission of joint-funding applications 
  • Evidence of research-informed decision making and commissioning 
  • Co-authored publications.

Years 4–5 

  • Successful acquisition of further funding 
  • Evidence of change in the impact of health determinants in Cornwall 
  • Impact will be evidenced by a culture shift within the Council; a deeper and more detailed knowledge of health determinants and their place-based context; an active and empowered Citizen Research Group with evidenced contribution to HDRC activity; and a step-change in collaborative capacity to attract, deliver, and translate into practice and research activity addressing health inequalities.

Centre for Coastal Communities

Finding solutions to the challenges facing coastal communities
The ҹèÊÓƵ is one of the few UK Higher Education Institutions with a critical mass of academics with a proven track record of research on coastal communities. The Centre for Coastal Communities brings together researchers looking at coastal economic performance, deprivation, migration, educational underperformance, displaced populations, health and social care, the blue economy (renewable energy, fisheries, aquaculture, tourism, recreation and leisure), plastic pollution and economic, social and environmental policy for coastal communities.
 
Fishing nets