Public health news: Research projects

Public Health News: December 2023 

In October a research development event was held at The Word.

It featured the Community Insights and Know your Neighbourhood projects as well as workshop to generate a range of research questions. Lots of people attended including South Tyneside Council employees and volunteers from different organisations.

Know your Neighbourhood

Know your Neighbourhood is a government funding initiative providing funds of £30 million to support the voluntary sector.

The aim is to provide opportunities for people to come together when they're suffering from chronic loneliness and isolation.

A key focus of the programme is to generate and share learning on how people in disadvantaged areas can be supported to volunteer and improve their social connections.

South Tyneside was selected as one of ten areas to receive this funding. Fourteen local organisations have been awarded funding to enable them to run projects from July 2023 to March 2025.

This event gave them a platform to celebrate their award and share their plans.

Community Insights project

The lead researcher, Dr Shelina Visram, also presented the findings from the Community Insights project.

This project aimed to understand the health and wellbeing priorities of South Tyneside's more deprived and under-represented communities.

Other discussion points during the event

We also showed how the opinions of people from these communities informed the overall vision and objectives of the South Tyneside Health and Wellbeing Strategy.

One of the biggest aims of this event was to see if there was interest for more community-led research. We are exploring how we can expand South Tyneside's research network so we can increase our ability to do more research that might help to improve the health and wellbeing of the people who live here.

There was a competition to provide the most interesting research question. The winning idea was "How do we create awareness and accessible information to people to engage with services?" from Your Voice Counts. We are working with Your Voice Counts to support how they would like to spend their prize money.

Queries about research

If you have any questions about research (taking part or doing your own), we'd be happy to help.  

Join us as a Research Champion and receive regular updates for funding, training, participation and events.

Contact us on ResearchQueries@southtyneside.gov.uk.