Health Action Research Group

Health Action Research Group

At a glance

Causes

  • Campaigning
  • Health and well being / research and care

Other details

Organisation type: 
Not for profit
Geographical remit: 
National - England

Objectives

Whatever your background, you should have a reasonable chance of living a long and healthy life. Unfortunately, that's not the case in the UK today. Recognising that prevention is better than cure is key to addressing this. That's why we launched Health Action Research Group - and why your help matters.

Here's a quick indication of some of the issues our research has  identified: 

1. Health in the UK is often a postcode lottery. Being born in a deprived area means you’re likely to suffer more years of poor health and die younger. For example, women in affluent Richmond upon Thames can expect to enjoy an average of 18 years more good health than women in Tower Hamlets.

2. The UK has greater health inequalities than most other developed countries – and these inequalities have widened in recent years, including the north-south divide.

3. This impacts families and communities, exacerbates pressure on the NHS and social care, and causes estimated productivity losses of £32 billion a year.

4. Health inequalities start young, with the first 1000 days of life a formative period for both physical and mental health.

5. People’s environments are one source of health inequality – with cold, damp, insecure housing, air pollution, under-performing schools, poor access to public transport and an obesogenic food environment just some of the factors at play.

6. Economic inequalities are particularly pronounced in the UK, where the gap between the pay of a CEO and an average employee is above average for a developed country. This has been accompanied by the rise of the ‘working poor’ in often insecure, low paid jobs, sometimes on zero hours contracts.

7. As Professor Sir Michael Marmot has identified this has psycho-social impacts. The experience of low status and inequality – being low status, feeling low status and being made to feel low status has a significant detrimental effect on people’s lives and health.

8. It is probably no coincidence therefore that people in deprived areas are more likely to turn to smoking, alcohol and ‘comfort food’ as a coping mechanism – and why women in deprived areas are more than twice as likely to be prescribed anti-depressants.

9. Recent governments have been reluctant to tackle the underlying causes of health inequalities. For example, a former Health Secretary commented a few years ago, that it was hard enough for the government to tackle the tobacco industry, they couldn’t be expected to tackle the food industry as well.

10. Governments have preferred to rely on health information (e.g. through public health messaging and food labels). In practice this has tended to be acted on by those most literate and health conscious – effectively increasing health inequalities.

11. There has also been stigmatising of individuals, as when a writer in The Spectator, argued that ‘lardbuckets’ shouldn’t be consuming so much ‘crap’ and would benefit from a bit of fat-shaming. Interestingly he only singled out for censure those who consume ‘crap’ – not those who manufacture, market and distribute it.  

12. If health inequalities are to be tackled, there is therefore a need to recognise the significant cost to the UK of allowing such major health inequalities to continue, to tackle the underlying causes (economic, psycho-social and environmental), and through people’s lives, from the first 1000 days, through childhood, study and employment to retirement.

Activities

Health Action Research Group is an independent health think tank. We:

  • Research the root causes of preventable illness, both physical and mental. This includes environmental, psychosocial and economic factors. Unless we understand what is causing the increase in preventable illnesses (sometimes described as ‘noncommunicable diseases’) how can we expect to reduce them?
  • Research what is being done to reduce preventable illness in other developed countries and how effective this is, to identify ‘what works’ and see if there are lessons which can be applied here in the UK.
  • Share our findings, to seek to influence policy and practice.

We also work with fellow health charities, for example as a member of the Inequalities in Health Alliance, to seek to influence government, industry and the NHS.

We're a young organisation but our contribution is already being recognised. For instance:

- Our report Healthy and Wealthy? examined the mass production of food high in sugar, salt and fat in the UK from a health economics perspective and was reported in food trade press publications - including six pages of coverage in Cost Sector Catering.

- The House of Commons Health and Social Care Committee referred to our evidence in its May 2018 report on Tackling Childhood Obesity.

- In August 2018 Perspectives in Public Health published research into Student Health Behaviour Change, which we undertook in partnership with King's College London; in May 2019 it published our research into the importance of the early years for mental health; and in 2021 it published our research into successful initiatives to increase physical activity and our research into student mental health.

We were invited to provide a speaker on childhood obesity for Food Matters Live in November 2018 and November 2019, to participate in the First Food Matters Live Table Talk podcast in March 2019, and to chair a session on the role of nutrition and hydration in workplace wellbeing at Food Matters Live in October 2020.

We were also invited to provide a speaker on student mental health for conferences organised by Open Forum Events in 2021 and by the Westminster Higher Education Forum in 2022; and to provide a speaker on health inequalities for conferences organised by Inside Government and by In2MedSchool in 2022.

- The Royal Society for Public Health has published our blogs on topics including The impact of Climate Change on Public Health; Health Promotion - a Case Study; Using sports clubs to help support men's health; Reducing childhood obesity internationally; and Student Mental Health - the role of social media.

King's College London, Ulster University, Goldsmith’s University of London, Greenwich University and Kingston University have worked with us on health research projects.

NB We were formerly known as Health Action Campaign and our name in some of the publications mentioned will therefore reflect this.  

We're a completely voluntary organisation. More than 20 of us are committing our time and expertise free of charge. If you'd like to join our team we'd be interested to hear from you. We're used to people contributing flexibly, to fit around work, study or family commitments.

 

No current opportunities

Search for volunteer opportunities with other organisations.