Community Health Research

Community Research

Research has a key role to play in promoting supporting and developing the work of local groups, organisations and the services that they provide.

Not all research starts in a university or is linked to clinical health studies.

Community research is a simple, structured way to collect information. It helps you review your work and plan for the future.

Community research helps to:

identify the needs of a group or local community
check whether people’s needs are being met
spot trends in your services
map local services and understand what others are doing
monitor and evaluate a service or project
measure the impact of your work

benefits for groups and organisations include:

provide evidence for fundraising, lobbying, and campaigning
strengthen funding applications by showing community involvement
improve how services and activities are delivered
help engage more people
encourage wider participation in services
build positive relationships with service users
show that your organisation is open and accountable

If you are looking for a straightforward guide to carrying out community research ARVAC has a free to use toolkit on their website which they have designed so that you can use it to work through your research process from start to finish – or you can dip in and out of it to find the sections you need: https://arvac.org.uk/resources/

If your are interested in Health Research you might also find the information on REACH of value too: https://worcsalliance.org/community-health-research

REACH Community Research Training Latest News!

REACH Worcestershire shows a social return on investment value of £3.68 per £1 spent

The Wellbeing team facilitated Research Engagement And Community Health (REACH) training, support and awareness raising between May and November last year. This project, funded via National Institute of Health Research, aims to help tackle health inequalities and raise engagement in health research in Worcestershire.

50 organisations engaged and 30 people from 23 different VCSE organisations servicing diverse rural populations attended the training. From this we now have 15 organisations who are actively involved in research; or who have signed up or indicated that they are interested in becoming community satellite research hubs, ready to engage further in reducing health inequalities.

The co-created REACH framework and training which set the training into the context of grassroots VCSE organisations was a key success factor and as a result we have created an enthusiastic community of VCSE organisations who are ready and keen to move forward with community research.

A fantastic positive unintended outcome from the project is that rural VCSE organisations gained skills which they say will enhance their fund raising and service development activities. People gained intrinsic value from the research training regardless of their starting point with some organisations involved in/starting innovative research projects and implementing research principles into their ways of working.

The evaluation included a Social Value Engine report which shows a social return on investment value of £3.68 per £1.

In the report the top 3 outcomes from the REACH training project were:

Develop research ready community satellite hubs
Returns from building the VCSE organisation
Increased Awareness and Uptake of Health Research

This resulted in the impact on each of the 3 stakeholders being distributed as follows:

VCSE organisations: 51.57%
Local Community: 24.35%
NHS: 24.08%

The REACH Community Research training provided me with practical research methods that I can directly apply in my work with care-experienced people. It was delivered by an experienced researcher who was engaging and inspiring. I enjoyed it immensely!

Rae Howard-Louvaine, Senior Engagement Officer

If you would like to be involved in health research personally you can find out more here: https://bepartofresearch.nihr.ac.uk/

Community Health Research

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