Ealing’s council and health services are joining forces with three universities to tackle the social and economic conditions that make people sick—low wages, poor housing, and lack of education—in one of the UK’s most ethnically diverse boroughs. The problem is stark. In Ealing, one in five jobs pays below the London Living Wage, and in some neighbourhoods a third of households are overcrowded and a third of residents lack formal qualifications. These “building blocks of health” drive deep inequalities, yet local government and the NHS rarely share data or coordinate action on them. This collaboration aims to close that gap. Over five years, the project will train a network of community researchers to work alongside council staff, link health records with housing and employment data, and build a public dashboard showing conditions across Ealing’s seven towns. If it succeeds, the result will be a permanent infrastructure for evidence-based policymaking—one that lets local authorities see, in near real-time, which policies actually improve people’s living conditions. The model could then spread to other diverse, deprived areas across the UK.
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Background: The West London Borough of Ealing is the third most ethnically diverse in the UK. Its 367,000 residents represent 300 ethnic groups and speak over 150 languages. Whilst Ealing’s communities are richly diverse, there are stark inequalities in the social determinants of health, referred to as the 'building blocks of health'. One fifth jobs in Ealing are paid below the London Living Wage and in parts of the borough, a third of residents have no educational qualifications and a third of households are overcrowded. NIHR investment will build on a strategic momentum to tackle inequalities, and develop and expand our existing academic collaborations. Vision: Ealing Building Blocks of Health Research Collaboration (BBHRC)’s vision is to develop a collaborative, impactful, research partnership focused on promoting the building blocks of health and health equity Aims: 1. Transform our research system and infrastructure 2. Strengthen and grow our research collaborations 3. Drive organisational capacity building and culture change 4. Embed diverse and inclusive community involvement in our transformation Key deliverables: 1. Develop a sustainable participatory action research infrastructure, including training a network of community researchers. They will participate in action research alongside council staff, to co-create new knowledge and action together 2. Integrate health and council data, working with the North West London NHS Whole System Integrated Care (WSIC) dashboard and co-produce a community data dashboard with building blocks of health data for Ealing's seven towns 4. Conduct an in-depth baseline assessment of the council’s current system of evidence use and creation, in order to inform workplans. 5. Develop a bespoke and curated training and development offer for staff at all levels Collaborations: Three academic partners, offering unique and complementary expertise (Institute of Development Studies -Participatory Action Research; Imperial College London - epidemiology and data linkage; London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine - cultures of evidence in local government, systems thinking and evaluation). Collaborating with communities will be embedded throughout BBHRC. Timeline: -Year 1 will focus on recruiting new staff, developing collaboration agreements, governance arrangements, and performance, financial and ethical frameworks. The ‘cultures of evidence’ research project, workforce needs analysis and community systems mapping will also take place. -Year 2 and 3 will focus on developing the community participatory action research infrastructure, data linkage and sharing including developing a platform for sharing qualitative insights across the council, integrating council data with health data and co-producing the community data dashboard. Staff development opportunities will be more broadly rolled out. -Year 4 and 5 will focus on dissemination of learning and research outputs, embedding the training and development offer into core training, evaluating impact of BBHRC and considering options for future sustainability. BBHRC’s anticipated impact will be: 1) Better evidence informed policy and practice on the building blocks of health 2) Greater research evidence creation on the building blocks of health 3) Greater learning and dissemination from BBRHC locally, regionally and nationally.
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