National partnership to tackle health inequalities in coastal communities

As shown by the Chief Medical Officer's 2021 report, coastal communities suffer some of the worst health outcomes in the country, and significant inequalities.

In coastal towns, poverty, poor housing, limited opportunities and a low-wage economy result in lower life expectancy and higher rates of major diseases compared to inland neighbours. Meanwhile, health services are overstretched.

Creative community assets such as arts and culture organisations have the potential to improve lives, and Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) aim to integrate community assets with preventive interventions and health and social care.

However, collaboration between NHS, local authorities, universities, voluntary and community sector and residents is challenging because of differences in organisational objectives, structure, and culture.

We need to understand how these stakeholders can come together to improve people's health.  To address these challenges, our project adopts a collaborative, multi-sectoral approach involving lived experience experts, voluntary and community organisations, local authorities, health and social care professionals, and academics.

By focusing on three coastal areas with poor health outcomes—Blackpool, Weston-Super-Mare, and Hastings—we aim to generate an evidence-based plan that supports collaboration across sectors to tackle health inequalities. We will focus on key priority areas in mental health identified by our communities: young people’s mental health and wellbeing; drug and alcohol misuse; and life-limiting illness and bereavement. We have three main aims:

A1) To generate evidence and resources to enhance the delivery of and access to creative community assets to improve mental health in our focus areas.
A2) To enhance research and practice capacity to tackle mental health and wellbeing inequalities through creative community assets.
A3) To build a model of collaborative working across sectors and with the community to tackle inequalities in coastal communities via creative community assets.