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This case study draws on social research on endometriosis, infertility and assisted reproduction dating from 2002 to 2011, and encompasses several distinct research projects. This body of work has been directed towards: improving patients' understandings of these conditions (particularly among South Asian communities); facilitating access to appropriate healthcare services; enhancing the awareness of healthcare practitioners and policy makers around key issues affecting patients and communities in the field of reproductive technologies; and facilitating debate to inform policy in the regulation of such technologies.
Research conducted within the University of East London's Institute of Health and Human Development (IHHD) is reshaping the development, commissioning, delivery and evaluation of interventions to address the wider determinants of health and health-inequalities, and has had impacts on public policy, service design and, ultimately, public health and wellbeing. Grounded in close relationships with policy-makers and end users, UEL's primary research into community development and co-production has informed the design of health improvement interventions, delivered through the cross-institutional, community-based Well London project. Research findings have driven Big Lottery funding priorities, contributed to parliamentary debates on health, informed NICE and Local Government guidance, shaped Marmot Review Team and NESTA policy, and led health authorities to commission new services and adopt new approaches to service delivery.
The `People in Public Health' (PIPH) study and related research on health trainers, health champions and volunteers has brought together evidence on rationales for lay engagement, effectiveness and models of support. Dissemination activities, supported by a Department of Health grant, have achieved reach into various policy arenas and national networks. At the same time there is evidence of research utilisation in public health practice. One of the impacts has been the establishment of `Active Citizens for Health', a national network of partner organisations to bring together evidence and learning that has been hosted by Leeds Metropolitan University.
The body of research commences with the UK's first published assessment of accommodation and other (health, education etc) needs of Gypsies and Travellers (G/T) in accordance with the 2004 Housing Act. The research had a direct influence on Government policy making process, impacting the development of new data sets, statutory guidance on the content of assessments and demonstrating the viability of innovative collaborative research methodologies with nomadic/sedentary Gypsy-Traveller populations. The Fundamental Rights Agency and INVOLVE subsequently cited the research as `best practice' for research focussing on `hard to reach' communities.
This research has enabled more effective integration of refugees and other new migrants into society both at individual level by helping individual migrants to gain access to employment and improved social welfare provision, and at a strategic level by influencing the development of policy initiatives around refugee employment, mental health and migrant access to maternity services. The research has employed innovative methods to engage migrants in research about integration and in work to influence policy, thereby shaping national and local (Birmingham and West Midlands) integration policy and practice.
Since the Bradford Riots in 2001, research at Bradford has helped to defuse underlying tensions between deprived, multiethnic communities and between them and the local state thus strengthening community resilience in the city. Building on global research, particularly in Latin America, we have introduced participatory and peace-building methodologies into the locality, but with implications beyond it. The Programme for a Peaceful City enhances our impact through academic-practitioner reflection spaces. Our research with rather than on communities fosters their voice in policy, contributing to a non-confrontational response to the EDL in 2010, 2012 and 2013 and bringing community activists from Bradford's diverse communities together to co-create the ESRC-funded Community University (Comm-Uni-ty) in May 2013.