Economies for Healthier Lives
Economy and Work, Inequalities
Jan 2021 - Ongoing
Economies for Healthier Lives is a three-year programme managed and delivered by The Health Foundation. Funding has been allocated to five local partnerships across the UK to promote health and reduce inequalities through economic development strategies, one of which is the Glasgow City Region (GCR).
The Glasgow Centre for Population Health is providing evaluation support to the GCR partnership, which involves annual reporting on progress and outcomes, as well as ongoing evaluation support to the project’s Core Team.
Project objectives
The GCR Economies for Healthier Lives (EfHLs) project aims to maximise the health, wellbeing and economic benefits generated by Glasgow City Region’s Capital Investment Programme.
The evaluation objectives are:
- To investigate how the activities, processes, relationships and leadership around the programme have impacted on outputs and intended outcomes.
- To achieve the co-productive development and adoption of a Capital Investment Health Inequalities Impact Assessment Tool (or ‘CHIIA’ / the tool).
What is involved
A formative approach has been taken, which involves collecting regular feedback from team members and project stakeholders through a combination of interviews, focus groups, surveys, observation and an ongoing review of written outputs from the project.
Findings & outcomes
Learning is being collated throughout the life course of the project. For year one, learning was generated in relation to project progress and the baseline expectations of partners, as follows:
- There was broad consensus around project aims and a pervasive understanding that the work is about supporting better outcomes for communities and reducing inequalities across the Region.
- Project stakeholders share a general ambition for the project to support better partnership working between public health and economic development staff, as well as other allied professions.
- Early engagement has helped to generate interest in the novel approach.
- There is an expressed need to progress the co-productive element of the work.
- Project stakeholders recognise that meaningful co-production needs to be underpinned by a set of principles that do not necessarily align with current practice.
- Operational challenges highlighted by members of the Core Team were predominantly related to ways of working and organisational culture, as well as to external factors that could shape organisational priorities and capacity.
- Enabling factors were described in relation to effective ongoing engagement, leadership, alignment with policy and strategy, understanding and buy-in, and the potential usability of the CHIIA tool.
- Perceived success factors included collaboration around the development of an evidence-informed tool, widespread use of the tool across a diversity of sectors, prioritisation of a reduction in health inequalities through evidence-informed decision making and learning from the project shaping practice elsewhere.
In year two, the work continues to develop in line with the agreed Project Plan, with key milestones including the development of an Appreciate Inquiry Report, the delivery of ten Development Cohort Sessions for staff involved in impact assessment, and a Stakeholder Workshop. Additionally, a Community Panel has been formed to shape the development of the tool. This approach has helped to generate learning and insights that can support the development of the CHIIA tool. Learning relating to these key milestones, as well as learning on progress against agreed project outcomes, will be presented in the year two report before the end of 2023.
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