Pathways to Health Through Cultures of Neighbourhoods

The place where you grow up can determine your health throughout your life: those born and living in disadvantaged areas are at higher risk of poor health outcomes and reduced life opportunities. Although we know that early intervention can prevent adult health inequality there is a gap in the provision and understanding of adolescent needs within integrated care systems. This project speaks to this gap: it reimagines how we co-create and design pathways to health by placing young people (age 11-16) from deprived communities in Southampton at the heart of a network of academics, civic leaders, health professionals, NGOs, cultural organisations and young people themselves. Young people tell us that culture is important to their identities and their lives. We will work together to use culture to create alternative futures.

Despite being in the so-called 'affluent south' Southampton is a place of great inequality: 1 in 5 children under the age of 16 live in low-income families and a similar proportion of the population aged under eighteen live within 10% of the most deprived areas nationally. The number of looked after children in Southampton is almost a third higher than the average in England. The effects of deprivation on young people in the city create specific health challenges which become exacerbated in the adult population. Most critically these relate to alcohol consumption, mental health, and obesity.

Consultations undertaken in Southampton, as part of its bid to be UK City of Culture 2025, revealed that access to culture-based health and wellbeing opportunities for young people are widely divergent across the city. It also demonstrated that young people's understanding radically differed from that of the adult population and painted a different picture of the city - its strengths, its assets and opportunities. This project places this thinking, that challenges existing approaches and creates opportunities, at the centre as it develops innovative and creative pathways to change. We will work with young people to understand what culture is to them and how understanding culture through the eyes of young people might lead to a reconceptualisation of cultural provision within an integrated care system. We will work with young people to unlock 'hidden' or unofficial cultural assets in their communities. We will better understand which cultural assets are associated with positive and negative health behaviours, and how to support 'hidden' or unauthorised cultural assets that can foster positive community outcomes.

Young people will be trained as researchers and advocates and will be placed at the centre of a consortium that includes senior researchers and non-academic partners. We will bring different services and providers together to learn from young people and from each other to develop best practice and tools for using cultural engagement to improve young people's health outcomes and life chances. The project will be guided by an experienced, balanced, transdisciplinary team representing the combination of skills and expertise needed to deliver our aims. We draw on established leaders with track records of innovation from academia, the third sector, local government, practitioners, and HIoW ICS, with a shared vision to put young people at the heart of the ICS to reduce health disparities. Together we will create a community cultural asset hub that explores new pathways to health for young people through the cultures of neighbourhoods.