The CHERISH Project

People living in low-income areas spend on average nearly 20 years more in poorer health compared to those living in wealthier areas. Factors such as insecure jobs, unsuitable housing and the cost-of-living crisis can create barriers to making positive choices for individual’s health and wellbeing. Additionally, research and healthy living initiatives regularly fail to reach and engage the people who may benefit the most.

CHERISH aims to address this disconnection between research and real-world communities, through a collaborative and community-led approach. A partnership of researchers from NIHA and the wider UEA, Norfolk Citizens Advice and the Charles Burrell Centre in Thetford and the communities they work with, are finding out new ways of doing research about healthy living to inform future research and practice.

CHERISH is developing and trying out sustainable participatory research approaches to engage, support and empower people to live healthier and happier lives. For instance, making a collage, sharing stories, and social activities such as group walks. We will ask the communities which approaches might engage them in research, try them out in small groups and ask people what they think. We will focus our discussions on eating behaviours and physical activity, which alongside smoking and alcohol consumption most impact people living in low-income areas.

We will gain insights about new approaches to engage communities in research about how to best support people to stay healthy. This will help us develop new research which is more suited to the needs of these communities. We will share our findings in appropriate ways: for example, a short video, presentation or poster from the artwork for the communities and research participants, and reports and presentations for local Government, NHS and academic community.

In November 2023, researchers facilitated three discussions across Norfolk to gain insight into potential creative and engaging ways to reach and involve people from under-served communities in research about healthy living. These groups suggested some exciting ideas such as dance classes, being outside and art-based activities.

For a more detailed summary into these discussions and our learning, please see the evidence briefing document.

Researchers have spent the last 6 months joining community groups across the county to facilitate in depth conversations about their ability to live well and what this means to people from under-served communities. These exciting sessions have ranged from fishing, gardening, cooking and even Zumba!

The project information sheet contains information relating to participants taking part in trialling and evaluating these creative methods.

As part of our work with the Lived Experience Group, we have created a short video where participants have shared what being involved in the CHERISH Project has meant for them. You can watch this video on our NIHA YouTube channel.

CHERISH is funded through a Programme Development Grant by the National Institute of Health and Care Research (NIHR205176).

This includes representatives from Norfolk Citizens Advice, the Charles Burrell Centre, a lived experience co-production group, Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust, Norwich Institute of Healthy Ageing, UEA School of Health Sciences and Norwich Medical School, and CreativeUEA.