Co-Producing Integrated Place-Based Supports to Enable Healthy Ageing-In-Place for Roma Communities

Public health bodies, government reports and policies have identified Roma communities as a key priority, stating that health and wellbeing interventions are urgently needed to address widening inequalities. Roma groups experience some of the poorest health and wellbeing outcomes across society, including significantly lower life expectancies, higher prevalence of long-term chronic conditions and increased social exclusion. Poorer health related outcomes result from barriers and challenges to accessing the physical, social, and cultural assets to age well. The aim of this project is to identify how community assets can support healthy ageing for Roma communities and to co-produce Integrated Place-based Hubs (IPBHs) aimed at reducing health inequities in middle to later life (40+). This project will adopt a community based participatory research (CBPR) approach, utilising a co-researcher model and visual and creative methods to understand how community assets can be mobilised to improve health and wellbeing and reduce marginalisation and exclusion for Roma communities. This proposal has been designed and will be conducted in equal partnership with Roma groups, bringing together an exciting transdisciplinary team across three localities in the UK where we have strong existing partnerships with statutory and non-statutory organisations, to truly co-design interventions targeted at addressing health inequities. In doing so, this research proposal creates a unique opportunity to deliver a transformative place-based approach to integrated service delivery aimed at reducing health inequalities to ensure that the Roma community are not left behind in the government commitment to deliver 'five extra healthy, independent years of life by 2035'.