RESUMO
BACKGROUND: A larger percentage of social housing tenants have poorer physical and mental health outcomes compared to private renters and homeowners. They are also at a greater risk of respiratory conditions, cardiovascular disease, communicable disease transmission and mortality. One approach that aims to reduce health inequalities is to create research partnerships with underserved local communities. Our primary aim was to develop a research partnership with social housing tenants in Nottingham and our secondary aim was to explore the health priorities of these social housing tenants to inform future research applications. We also hope to provide a descriptive process of PPI within a social housing context for other researchers to learn from. METHODS: We used Public and Patient Involvement (PPI) as the foundation of this work, as we believed that people with lived experience of social housing, also end-users of the research, were best placed to inform us of the areas with the greatest research need. Through online and in-person focus groups, we discussed with tenants, collectively named a Social Advisory Group (SAG), their health concerns and priorities. Together they raised 26 health issues, which were combined with 22 funding opportunity themes being offered by the NIHR (National Institute for Health and Care Research). This was with the purpose of investigating whether there was alignment between the health needs of Nottingham's social housing tenants and the NIHR's research priorities. A prioritisation technique (Diamond Nine) was used to sort in total, 48 areas of health and wellbeing, into three top priorities. Tenants were provided the opportunity to be involved in public health research in other ways too, such as reviewing this paper and also an NIHR Programme Development Grant application to expand and continue this work. One was also offered the opportunity to be a public co-applicant. RESULTS: The group prioritised improvements in the quality of social housing, mental health and healthcare services. There was only some alignment between these and the NIHR funding themes. Other factors, such as age and race, also determined individual health priorities. . The diversity and reach of the current project were limited, however this is something we hope to improve in the future with more funding. We learned that tenants have varying degrees of mobility and technological abilities, requiring both online and in-person meetings.
Social housing is offered to people who cannot afford to buy or rent in the open market, and a larger percentage of social housing tenants have poorer physical and mental health outcomes compared to the general population. One approach that aims to reduce health inequalities is to create sustainable research partnerships with underserved local communities. Our primary aim was to involve social housing tenants in public health research, as they are best placed to tell us the type of research they would benefit from. The secondary aim was to explore the health priorities of social housing tenants to inform future research applications. We also hope to describe the process of PPI within a social housing context for other researchers to learn from.To achieve these aims, we established a research partnership with a group of social housing tenants in Nottingham and spoke to them about the areas of their health they wanted to improve (i.e., their priorities). The topics that were discussed the most were the need for improved mental health, quality of social housing and healthcare services, however this varied between individuals according to race and age. We learned several things throughout this process. Firstly, the combination of mobility and technological abilities amongst tenants meant that meetings must be held both in-person and online. This ensured they remained accessible and convenient. Secondly, we learnt that in-person meetings should be held in a neutral space to encourage different members of the group to attend. Finally, in general, people were very enthusiastic about this partnership and were committed to seeing improvements in public health. We therefore provided more opportunities for the group to be involved in research. For example, they were offered the opportunity to write and edit a lay summary for a future research application, which was based on the priorities identified in this paper. One member of the group was nominated to be the public co-applicant , which would allow us to increase the reach of this housing work across the East Midlands. It would also allow us to increase the diversity of the group, as currently it is made up of mostly retired females of British origin. Involving the public in health research has been central to this process and continues to be important in the production of accessible and relevant research.