Kate Pickett
Healthy Livelihoods Joint Theme Lead
Our three main objectives are:
The overarching aim of our theme is to create a north-south/Bradford-Tower Hamlets alliance to better understand the synergies and divergences of Healthy Livelihoods issues in both locations.
The COVID-19 pandemic led to our project looking at the impact of the pandemic on families with children under five and pregnant women in Tower Hamlets. This included a survey of 992 families, a qualitative longitudinal panel of 22 households, and a community assets map of changes to services for families during the summer of 2020. We were also funded to undertake some work around adapting to COVID-19 with pregnant women and new mothers in ‘The Born in Bradford 2020 Families Study’. We have also collaborated with the public health team in the London borough of Newham and UCL’s Institute of Child Health to run a parallel Covid-19 impact study with young families. For more information visit here
We are developing a visualisation of a Tower Hamlets community assets map of support for young families with social enterprise Mapping for Change and working with local parents to ascertain the map’s use and value.
Our plan to model how a Universal Basic Income (UBI) would impact mental health and wellbeing among young adults has local support. We are working with Lancaster and Newcastle Universities, plus colleagues at the The Royal Society for Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA), and older teenagers and young adults from across Bradford to co-design a UBI intervention and understand what difference a secure income would make to their lives and livelihoods.
The Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS) Alliance is a voluntary community organisation developed to co-ordinate the voluntary and community sector in Bradford to deliver health and social care projects across the area. The VCS Alliance co-ordinate a welfare benefits advice programme co-located within the primary care network across the community. We are conducting an evaluation of this service in partnership with the VCS Alliance, to evaluate the health, social and financial impacts of this service and its effect on primary care workload. Read more here
Tower Hamlets wanted to know whether to continue to fund their Covid-19 emergency food hub. We interviewed participating voluntary and council run services to find out their views about the use and value of the additional food provision. Read the full report here
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The UK Prevention Research Partnership is a £50 million multi-funder initiative that supports novel research into the primary prevention of non-communicable diseases to improve population health and reduce health inequalities.