Fylde Coast Research Consortium

We are a team of people from all walk of life with a shared vision of improving wellbeing for our community on the Fylde coast and for other coastal communities. Coastal communities continue to have more and greater mental and physical health challenges, resulting in lower life expectancy and higher rates of many major diseases compared to their inland neighbours (Chief Medical Officer's Annual Report, 2021). There are a number of well-known factors that contribute to health inequalities in coastal regions, including deprivation, poor housing, and a low-wage economy (Marmot, 2005; Williams & Buck, 2020). All of these place increased demand on overstretched health services. Despite this, large-scale research focusing specifically on coastal communities is scarce. It is known that community-based support delivered by the VCFSE sector has the potential to reduce the burden on public health services, which has been especially important during the Covid-19 pandemic (Stansfield et al., 2020). VCFSE organisations are close to communities, they have skills in and experience of working with the most disadvantaged members of the community often considered 'hard to reach', they have the flexibility to respond to community needs and deliver effective interventions (Department of Health, 2008; Local Government Association, 2017; Allison, 2010). However, there are barriers in the commissioning process, e.g. lack of financial resources, and challenges in the evaluation strategies, e.g. limited evaluation literacy, technical capability, and knowledge of relevant outcome indicators, which makes it difficult for these organisations to be recognised and for their important work to become sustainable (Bach-Mortensen & Montgomery, 2018). We will mobilise our community's assets by uniting members of the public, community-based practitioners, and commissioners on the Fylde Coast to work together and improve partnership, service provision, and research. To do this, we first need to understand what is currently being delivered in the area; and so we will map out and engage the fullest possible range of community-based support providers. We will establish and test a model of working together. This model will include three co-production groups; each will focus on a specific task and work towards equally important aims. These groups will be led by co-researchers with relevant expertise by discipline or experience. Group 1 will unite lived-experience experts and practitioners, will use creative methods (e.g., PhotoVoice) to imagine the future of a community-hub that can integrate a broader range of available community-based support in response to the needs of the community. The aim is to enable lived-experience experts to become 'shapers and makers' of their own care provision rather than 'users and choosers' of it (Cornwall & Gaventa, 2000). Group 2 will provide a dedicated space for the public and VCFSE sector support providers to discuss the key barriers to cross-sector partnership working, co-produce an action plan to overcome these barriers, and establish shared goals, vision, and language. Group 3 will be called the Research Consortium, and will unite key stakeholders, including lived-experience experts. They will conduct a consultative rapid review on main drivers of ill-health in coastal communities, learn from Group 1 and 2, co-produce a five-year research plan, and establish an integrated research infrastructure (i.e. data sharing agreements, data warehouse, core outcome measures) enabling them to conduct research that will benefit people on the Fylde Coast and beyond. In parallel, regular open research workshops will be held to build research capacity in the community. We will test the impact of our activities on network patterns using social network analysis. We will connect with other coastal communities, including Hastings, with similar characteristics and health outcomes to share learning and lay the foundations of future collaborations.