Lambeth’s local government and health partners are building a research network to tackle why some residents live shorter, sicker lives than their neighbours. The problem is stark: Lambeth is a diverse inner-city borough where a person’s health is shaped more by their postcode, income, and ethnicity than by clinical care alone. The network—called Lambeth HEART—aims to close this gap by turning the borough into a living laboratory. It will link health records with local authority data on housing, employment, and social services, then use that combined information to design and test interventions that address the root causes of inequality. If successful, the network could change how Lambeth makes decisions. Instead of relying on national averages or gut instinct, policymakers would have real-time, locally generated evidence on what works—whether that’s a housing policy that reduces hospital admissions or a community programme that improves mental health. The project also builds permanent research capacity within the council and its partners, so the ability to ask and answer these questions outlasts the initial funding. The ultimate prize is a measurable reduction in the health gap between Lambeth’s richest and poorest residents.
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Summary: Our vision for the HDRC is to understand and act on the drivers of inequalities in Lambeth. The HDRC will create local research infrastructure and capacity in an integrated health and care system; build on a sophisticated linked data infrastructure which already brings together linked health information but will be expanded to local authority data; focus approaches on race equity and intersectionality with other protected characteristics and impacts of health. Background: The London Borough of Lambeth (LBL) is a diverse inner-city borough with substantial health & wellbeing needs. LBL has an ambition to reduce the inequalities experienced by our residents by improving the economic, social and environmental factors, which contribute to wider health & wellbeing outcomes. The place based integrated care partnership Lambeth Together, shares the ambition of improving health and wellbeing and reducing inequalities. Aim: To develop an open and participative research collaboration which generates new knowledge, identifies, and applies existing evidence to tackle wider determinants to reduce inequalities in health and wellbeing outcomes. This will be underpinned by research, data, evidence which involves local people and informs decisions made by LBL and its partners and is delivered within an integrated health and care system. Objectives: 1. Develop a culture of research though leadership, training and engagement; 2. Establish mechanisms for the co-production with local communities; 3. Further develop and build on existing data infrastructure to support wider determinants research linking local authority data, and build capacity; 4. Develop wider collaboration to extend the scope of research agendas and projects; 5. Build on existing platforms to support dissemination of learning, sharing of resources and engagement with partners and communities; 6. Support strategic and scalable interventions which are likely to have reach and impact in the social determinants of health; 7. Ensure sustainability by building skills and capacity to apply for external research funding aligned to local priorities Key deliverables: We have 17 deliverables related to these objectives focusing on culture change, collaboration, developing research data infrastructure, learning from other HDRCs, using evidence to influence policy and research agendas; scope and develop platforms to support dissemination; evaluation and reporting; agree work to design interventions; support the commissioning and evaluation of programmes; horizon scan for research funding opportunities. Collaborations: This proposal was co-developed with a range of partners including staff, academics, Black Thrive, Healthwatch Lambeth, various community groups, elected members, and our statutory partners such as Lambeth Together and Kings Health Partners Milestones: a summary chart and detailed timetable with timelines for delivery of milestones is provided Anticipated impact and dissemination: The impact of our HDRC can divided into changes in the structure and process of decision-making in LBL, short-term changes in local policies & practice, service impacts, and longer-term impacts on health and wellbeing and inequalities to people in Lambeth. We will follow the principles of good dissemination; produce a range of outputs tailored to our audiences in an accessible language; utilise opportunities to build on our existing networks, and events within our partnerships.
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