Wild Swimming and Blue Spaces: Mobilising interdisciplinary knowledge and partnerships to combat health inequalities at scale

最近，野外游泳（也称为开放水域游泳或冷水游泳）或在自然的“蓝色空间”（包括河流，湖泊或海洋）游泳的流行程度激增，突显了利用蓝色空间作为社区资产来对抗健康不平等的机会的重要性。然而，尽管野生游泳对身体和精神健康的好处有据可查，与健康状况不佳的大群体有关，但目前侧重于野生游泳以减轻健康不平等的预防和干预战略往往是地方性的，基于地方的和不同的，而且缺乏一个整体的联合方法，使它们能够作为既定卫生政策的一部分扩大规模，造福整个社区。与我们的项目合作伙伴合作（Swim England，Black Swimming Association，The National Trust，Freshwater Biological Association，UK Centre for Hydrology and Ecology，Leicestershire County理事会，Partners Health的Social Prescribing，和Thrive health content developers），我们已经确定了扩大成功的基于地点的方法的主要障碍之一：目前缺乏关于野生游泳对身心健康益处的综合信息，以及与人们用于游泳的特定蓝色空间的水质和安全方面有关的风险。我们的项目汇集了一个领先的艺术和人文研究人员在应用语言学（Adolphs，奈特，Sotirova），基于地方的文献（杰克逊，普拉特）和地名（卡罗尔），在健康科学和组织层面的实施战略（莫法特和蒂蒙斯），以及国际知名的专家水质和淡水生态系统（麦高文）。与我们的项目合作伙伴一起，我们将我们的跨学科专业知识结合起来，解决以下两个主要研究问题：RQ1：我们如何共同创建有关野生游泳的证据库和样本内容，以促进扩大当地的方法和举措，以消除健康不平等？利用与历史、文献、健康效益和安全方面以及蓝色空间水质相关的数据库和资源，我们将与合作伙伴共同创建和评估样本内容，并从当前和未来的游泳社区获得投入。RQ 2：需要形成和正式化什么样的机制和关系，以扩大利用蓝色空间的方法，通过野生游泳？我们将与项目合作伙伴密切合作，绘制实施景观图，并为野生游泳作为健康和福祉干预措施的更大规模和传播提供路线图，描绘可能参与这一过程的所有机构。我们的项目将为学术界内外的用户带来重大利益。我们将开发一种新的混合方法，利用语料库语言学和叙事分析，以创建有效的公共卫生信息，其中包括来自一系列学科的内容。反过来，这些内容将有利于健康生态系统中野生游泳的推广者和专员，从而扩大地方举措的规模。最终，我们的项目将使许多个人和不同的社区受益，他们将能够以安全的方式享受野外游泳，以改善健康，并提高对蓝色空间的性质及其作为社区资产的作用的认识。

The recent surge in popularity of wild swimming (also referred to as open water swimming or cold water swimming), or swimming in natural 'blue spaces', including rivers, lakes or the sea, has highlighted the significant scale of opportunity to leverage the use of blue spaces as community assets to combat health inequalities. However, despite the well documented physical and mental health benefits of wild swimming that are relevant to large groups of the population suffering from ill health, current prevention and intervention strategies that focus on wild swimming to mitigate health inequalities tend to be local, place-based and disparate, and lack an overall joined-up approach that would allow them to be scaled up to benefit whole communities as part of established health policy. In collaboration with our project partners (Swim England, Black Swimming Association, The National Trust, Freshwater Biological Association, UK Centre for Hydrology and Ecology, Leicestershire County Council, Social Prescribing at Partners Health, and Thrive health content developers), we have identified one of the main barriers to scaling up successful place-based approaches: the current lack of integrated information about the mental and physical health benefits of wild swimming alongside the risks related to water quality and safety aspects of specific blue spaces that people use for swimming. Our project brings together a team of leading arts and humanities researchers in applied linguistics (Adolphs, Knight, Sotirova), place-based literatures (Jackson, Pratt), and place-names (Carroll), alongside leading experts in health sciences and organisation level implementation strategies (Moffatt and Timmons), and an internationally renowned expert on water quality and freshwater ecosystems (McGowan). Together with our project partners, we bring to bear our combined interdisciplinary expertise to address the following two main research questions:RQ1: How can we co-create an evidence base and sample content about wild swimming that will facilitate scale up of local approaches and initiatives to combat health inequalities? Drawing on databases and sources relating to the histories, literatures, health benefits and safety aspects, as well as water quality of blue spaces, we will co-create and evaluate sample content with our partners and with input from current and prospective swimming communities.RQ 2: What kind of mechanisms and relationships need to be formed and formalised to scale up approaches that leverage blue spaces to combat health inequalities through wild swimming? Working closely with our project partners, we will map the implementation landscape and provide a route map for wider scale up and spread of wild swimming as a health and wellbeing intervention, delineating the full range of agencies that may be involved in this process.Our project will have significant benefits for users within and beyond the academic community. We will develop a new mixed methods approach, drawing on corpus linguistics and narrative analysis, to create effective public health messaging that includes content from a range of academic disciplines. This content, in turn, will be of benefit to promoters and commissioners of wild swimming in the health ecosystem, allowing for scale up of local initiatives. Ultimately our project will benefit the many individuals and diverse communities who will be enabled to enjoy wild swimming in a safe way to improve health, and to gain an increased awareness of the nature of blue spaces and their role as a community asset.