National Centre for Creative Health

‘Mobilising Community Assets to Tackle Health Inequalities’ is a research programme, in partnership with the National Centre for Creative Health, led by University College London’s Culture-Nature-Health Research Group.

Our research projects promote people-powered change, by amplifying lived experience voices. Together, we are exploring how collaborative community, cultural and nature-based activities can improve health inequalities in the UK.

It is funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), including Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Medical Research Council (MRC).

The programme is funded across three phases from 2021 to 2027.

News & Blogs

Phase One

Projects ran in 2022. This phase funded 12 pilot projects up to £180,000 for 12 months. These projects focus on how to scale up small, local approaches for addressing health inequalities.

Discover more about the Phase One projects >>

Phase Two

Projects began in November 2022. In this phase, 16 consortia-building projects running for nine months were funded up to £250,000 each. These projects will facilitate cross-partner collaboration, incorporating relevant non-academic partners, including community groups and health system organisations.

Discover more about the Phase Two projects >>

Phase Three

Projects funded in this phase were announced in February 2024 and will run for 3 years. This £25 million investment will provide large-scale funding for 12 projects across the UK, building on phases one and two of the Mobilising programme.

The projects seek to tackle entrenched and long standing health inequalities in Britain’s poorest communities by exploring how health systems can collaborate more effectively with communities.

Discover more about the Phase Three projects >>

Programme Outputs

Learn more about the work of the programme from our latest outputs:

Interim findings from the UK Research and Innovation Mobilising Community Assets to Tackle Health Inequalities Research Programme: Working with communities to reduce health inequalities >>

Case study syntheses

Phase 1 case study synthesis >>

Phase 2 case study synthesis >>

Journal Articles

- Moustakas, A., Thomson, L.J., Mughal, R. & Chatterjee, H.J. (2024) Effects of community assets on major health conditions in England: A Data analytic approach. Healthcare, 12(16), 1608. https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare12161608 >>

- Thomson, L.J. & Chatterjee, H.J. (2024) Barriers and enablers of integrated care in the UK: A rapid evidence review of review articles and grey literature 2018-2022. Frontiers in Public Health, 11, 1286479. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2023.1286479 >>

- Thomson, L.J., Waterson, H. & Chatterjee, H.J. (2024) Successes and challenges of partnership working to tackle health inequalities using collaborative approaches to community-based research: mixed methods analysis of focus group evidence. International Journal for Equity in Health, 23,135. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12939-024-02216-1 >>

Case Studies

Read some of our project case studies here >>

Includes:

- Prescribe Heritage Highland

- Human Henge

- Weston-super-Mare Community network

-Branching Out

- Art at the Start

About

Lived Experience Advisory Group (LEAG)

Equitable Lived Experience inclusion is a central tenet of our community research! More information about our LEAG coming soon!

For information regarding the Programme's Lived Experience Advisory Group contact Lived Experience Producer Kiz Manley on kiz.manley@ucl.ac.uk.

Research Team

Mobilising Community Assets to Tackle Health Inequalities Research Team includes: Helen Chatterjee (UCL); Alex Coulter (NCCH); Catherine Gilmore (UCL); Kiz Manley (UCL); Rabya Mughal (UCL); Linda Thomson (UCL); Hannah Waterson (NCCH)

Find out more about the Research Team >>

More Information

Keep up-to-date with the Mobilising Community Assets to Tackle Health Inequalities Programme

Sign up to the Mobilising Community Assets to Tackle Health Inequalities Programme Newsletter HERE >>

Or download our most recent newsletter here >>

Follow us on social media: we are on Bluesky, LinkedIn, and X.

Listen to the Mobilising Community Assets to Tackle Health Inequalities Podcast >>

News & Blogs

Creating Knowledge Together – MCA Lived Experience Advisory Group contributes to essay collection

Resetting the relationship between community organisations & the government- lessons from MCA

An Exploration of the Role of Lived Experience in Researching Creative Health Research

Creating Change

Mobilising Community Assets - Phase 3 Projects Announced

Mobilising Community Assets (MCA) to Tackle Health Inequalities: Phase 2 Projects

Mobilising Community Assets – Phase 1 Case Study Synthesis

Mobilising Community Assets Response to Government’s Consultation

Collaborative community research to tackle health inequalities funding opportunity