Organisations of Hope: Building a Creative Consortium for Health Equity in Greater Manchester

平均而言，大曼彻斯特居民的健康状况比居住在该国其他地区的人更差。这对身心健康都是如此。然而，特别引人注目的是，这些健康状况不佳的结果在整个城市地区各不相同，对某些社区和地区的影响比对其他社区和地区的影响更大。艺术和创意活动可以跨越社区和文化界限，对人们的健康和心理健康产生积极影响。因此，我们认为创造性的保健活动是解决这些不平等的一种可能方式。不幸的是，整个城市支持创造性健康的组织和资产与医疗和社会保健系统没有很好地联系起来，因此目前人们很难获得并从中受益。大曼彻斯特开创了一种新的方法来解决不平等问题，将医疗和社会保健结合起来，使两者能够密切合作，为获得这些服务的人提供支持。这座城市还发挥了重要作用，为获得创造力、文化和遗产如何增强健康和福祉提供了证据。因此，大曼彻斯特致力于成为一个创造性的健康城市地区，并制定了实现这一目标的战略，重点是增加公平。一旦这一战略得到全面实施，我们将看到多个社区团体获得创造性活动和机会，创造一个支持性环境，使长期患有身心疾病的人能够受益。然而，为了实现这一目标，我们首先需要了解那些提供创造性卫生活动的人，卫生从业人员，政策制定者和当地社区之间的现有联系，然后如何改善和嵌入这些联系。曼彻斯特大学（UoM）和伦敦国王学院（KCL）的研究人员将与大曼彻斯特综合护理系统-连接整个城市地区的健康和社会护理的新机构-以及大曼彻斯特联合管理局合作建立一个创造性的健康联盟。这将是一个由代表社区、文化组织、慈善机构和地方政府的组织和个人组成的多元化团体。该小组将共同努力，以了解我们如何利用现有的“社区资产”，以改善健康和福祉，并增加公平。我们想知道人们使用什么资产，使用这些资产的障碍是什么，但也想知道差距在哪里，以及人们希望在他们的社区中更多什么。我们希望更好地了解这些资源如何使我们的社区更健康和更公平。在项目期间，我们将探讨将创造性的健康方法融入全市护理系统的障碍。这将涉及绘制当地活动、资产和资源的地图，并研究它们如何在整个城市地区分布。我们将专注于影响健康和福祉的活动，寻找非常成功的活动可以共享或复制的方式，以服务于其他社区。我们认为，在文化和社区组织工作的人以及健康和社会护理人员需要更好的关于创造性健康的信息。他们可能还需要新的培训。我们计划更多地了解这些需求以及如何满足这些需求。我们希望在未来，该财团将能够发展未来的研究，创造力，社区资产和健康公平之间的关系。这将涉及测试不同的方法，并更好地了解哪些方法有效以及为什么有效。我们希望能够与合适的人一起进行正确的研究，这样我们就知道如何在城市和地区之间更公平地提供创造性的健康活动。

On average, residents in Greater Manchester have worse health outcomes than people living in other parts of the country. This is true for both physical and mental health. However, what is particularly striking is how these poor health outcomes vary across the city region, affecting some communities and areas more than others. Arts and creative activities can cross community and cultural boundaries and have a positive impact on people's health and mental wellbeing. Therefore, we see creative health activities as a possible way of addressing these inequalities. Unfortunately, the organisations and assets that support creative health across the city are not well linked up with the health and social care systems, so are currently difficult for people to access and benefit from.Greater Manchester has pioneered a new approach to addressing inequalities by combining health and social care in a way that allows the two to work together closely to support those accessing these services. The city has also played an important role in building evidence for how access to creativity, culture and heritage can enhance health and wellbeing. Due to this, Greater Manchester has committed to becoming a creative health city region and has devised a strategy for achieving this goal with a focus on increasing equity. Once this strategy is fully implemented, we will see creative activities and opportunities being accessed by multiple community groups, creating a supportive environment where people suffering from long-term physical and mental conditions can benefit. However, to achieve this we first need to understand the existing links between those who provide creative health activities, health practitioners, policymakers and local communities and then how to improve and embed these connections. Researchers at the University of Manchester (UoM) and King's College London (KCL) will work with the Greater Manchester Integrated Care System - the new body that links up health and social care across the city region - and the Greater Manchester Combined Authority to build a creative health consortium. This will be a diverse group of organisations and individuals that represent communities, cultural organisations, charities and local government. The group will work together to understand how we can use existing 'community assets' to improve health and wellbeing and increase equity. We want to know what assets people use, what the barriers are to using them but also where the gaps are and what people would like more of in their neighbourhoods. We hope to understand better how such resources might make our communities healthier and fairer.During the project we will explore barriers to integrating creative health approaches into the city-wide system for care. This will involve mapping local activities, assets and resources as well as looking at how they are spread across the whole city region. We will focus on activities that influence health and wellbeing, looking for ways that very successful activities might be shared or replicated to serve other communities. We think that people working in cultural and community organisations as well as people in health and social care need better information about creative health. They may also need new kinds of training. We plan to find out more about these needs and how they might be met. We hope in the future that the consortium will be able to develop future research into the relationships between creativity, community assets and health equity. This will involve testing different approaches and understanding better what works and why. We want to be in a position to do the right research with the right people so we know how to make creative health activities more fairly available across cities and regions.