Meet the Healthy and Active 100 Research Theme Leads
Research at the AWRC falls under three research themes, Healthy and Active 100, Living Well with Chronic Disease, and Digital and Technological Innovations to Promote Independent Lives.
Over the coming weeks, we will be introducing you to the leads of all three themes and asking them to tell us about some of the fantastic work that is is happening in their areas. We start today with Prof. Chris Dayson and Dr Cath Homer who head up the Healthy and Active 100 theme.
Hi Chris and Cath! First of all, tell us a bit about yourselves and your backgrounds?
Chris Dayson: I am Professor of Voluntary Action, Health and Wellbeing based in SHU’s Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research (CRESR) but seconded two days per week to AWRC to lead the HA100 theme since 2020. I’m a social scientist by discipline, but my research spans a range of fields including health services and public health, sociology, economics, public policy and administration and evaluation.
I haven’t always been an academic and my career journal has been quite diverse. Between 2001-2008 I worked in policy and research roles in the voluntary and public sectors. Through these roles and my personal involvement with local voluntary and community organisations (VCOs), I became acutely aware of the important link between their work promoting health and wellbeing and the priorities of the public sector locally and nationally.
I joined SHU in 2008 to focus on research on this topic, and since then have been involved in numerous studies at a local and national level. Although these studies have been commissioned by a variety of funders, and with numerous foci, they have always been underpinned with the following core research questions:
- How do VCOs support the health and wellbeing of people experiencing social and economic exclusion and inequality?
- What is the value and impact of this work for those people and the communities in which they live?
- How does this work contribute to local and national policy goals?
- To what extent does policy enable or inhibit?
Cath Homer: I am a Senior Research Fellow based in the Physical Activity, Wellness and Public Health research group and, like Chris, have been seconded two days per week to co-lead HA100 at the AWRC since 2020. My research interests are based on my previous careers outside of the University working in public health and physical activity within the NHS and local authorities (2004-2018). I started my career in community development and progressed to more strategic roles working across the life course and influencing the direction of policy and priority areas such as children and young people, obesity and fuel poverty.
I have worked in research at SHU since 2011, my first role here focused on co-producing obesity related research with statutory, industry, voluntary and community sectors. This and my career in public health have shaped my approach to co-developing research to address real-world problems working with policy-makers, practice and community partners. My research interests are interlinked through applied obesity research and how we can support the development of partners to increase their research capacity and culture of evidence-informed practice, resulting in better health and wellbeing for the communities in our local areas and beyond.
Can you tell us about the work you do within the Healthy and Active 100 Theme?
The HA100 is a very broad church but in a nutshell is about the prevention of ill-health and promotion of wellbeing through research that explores how different forms of physical and social activity support health creation. We want people to live a happy, healthy and prosperous life for as long as possible and believe that physical activity and social connection ought to be at the core of that goal.
We’re also acutely aware of social and economic inequalities and how these exacerbate health disparities. Where your parents were born, what jobs they do, where you live and go to school, how much money you have and the things you experience as a result of these are key predictors of the quality of life you live and the outcomes you experience throughout your life.
Most of the research we do in HA100 is rooted in the social and health sciences and combines qualitative and quantitative research methods. We speak to lots of people accessing and delivering health and community-based services and combine these insights with quantitative data from surveys and health systems to create a rounded picture of peoples characteristics, experiences and outcomes.
Increasingly, we’re interested in how these methods can be combined with approaches from the biological and computer sciences to produce interdisciplinary research that is more holistic in what it is able to tell us about communities, people and services.
What are the main priorities for the Healthy and Active 100 Theme in 2023?
This year sees the completion of two of our biggest projects: the national evaluations of the Government’s Green Social Prescribing Project and Low Calorie Diet Programme, and we hope to use these studies to develop further transformative research on the topics of social prescribing and asset-based approaches and diabetes prevention. This year also sees the start of a major programme of research with the City of Doncaster Council – the Health Determinants Research Collaborative (HDRC). This programme aims to develop research capacity and capability within Doncaster through collaborations between the academic sector and other stakeholders, which will undertake research to address the wider determinants of health and health inequalities.
Another area of focus for us the development of our partnership with Sheffield Children’s Hospital Complications of Excess Weight (CEW) clinic. Funded by NHS England, the CEW clinic uses a holistic approach to treating conditions related to obesity in children and young people (C&YP). The CEW clinic for South Yorkshire is co-located at the AWRC, our researchers have direct links with the clinicians leading the service and importantly the C&YP and their families attending the service, allowing us to co-design impactful research with C&YP at the heart.
We also want to continue supporting the next generation of researchers active on these topics, so over the next 12 months we hope to bring in at least two researchers and two PhD students to carry out research in HA100, linked to our priorities. We also support research capacity-building in the public and voluntary sectors through a support for, and engagement with the NIHR’s First Steps and Next Steps researcher development programmes.
Finally, this year sees the launch of the SHU Children and Young People Physical Activity Research Group, linked to our theme, which has set-out some ambitious goals for growing research impact and collaboration on this topic.
It sounds like there’s a lot to look forward to over the next year. Finally, what do you enjoy most about your roles as Theme Leads at the AWRC?
Chris Dayson: The chance to meet and collaborate with new people from other parts of SHU that I simply wouldn’t come in contact with if I wasn’t involved with AWRC. There have been several great collaborations that started with a chance meeting over lunch in the Forge. These types of ‘bumping spaces’ are few and far between in places like SHU but add real value to the day job.
Cath Homer: Building on our unique position of hosting co-located NHS clinics, which are allowing us to work directly with clinicians and patients to support service development and hopefully improve the health and wellbeing of people living in our communities.
Thanks for your time, Chris and Cath, and we look forward to hearing about all the exiting activity taking place in Healthy and Active 100 in 2023
Find out more about the Healthy and Active 100 research theme.