Mechanisms for community engagement in local alcohol decision making: a scoping study
Research Team: Dr Joanna Reynolds, Dr Matt Egan, Professor Jennie Popay, Dr Emma Halliday, Dr John Holmes, Professor Karen Lock, Dr Louise Lafortune, Maria Smolar, Shivangi Medhi, Sue Hare, Margaret Ogden & Professor Penny Cook
Who's involved: London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, LiLaC, University of Sheffield & University of Cambridge
February 2018 - November 2018
It is important, from both a public health and democratic perspective, for the community to have opportunities to shape their local alcohol environment and the policies designed to minimise harms from alcohol.
However, little is known about what opportunities there are currently for the community to influence decision making in local government around the alcohol environment, or about what kinds of effects these engagement opportunities have.
Through case studies in local authorities in England, this scoping study will explore the range of formal and informal ways in which community members might become engaged in processes that influence the local alcohol environment. The different groups of people and sets of interests that might be included within this definition of ‘community’, will also be identified.
The study will also look at existing research on community engagement and alcohol decision making to identify the possible pathways through which engagement might reduce the health and social harms related to alcohol and the alcohol environment. From the beginning, the study will invite input and contributions from a wide range of people, including community members, practitioners and academics, to bring on-the-ground knowledge of engagement mechanisms and alcohol decision making, and to help shape how the scoping activities are conducted.
The scoping study will seek to identify key research questions about how to improve community engagement in local alcohol decision making, to reduce health harms and inequalities. The questions identified will be explored through a further programme of research.
This project aims to develop a tool which was used to estimate the impact of alcohol licensing policies on public health and crime across the country, to see if it can be used on a smaller scale to help practitioners in local authorities make decisions around public health interventions and alcohol licensing.
June 2017 - November 2018
NIHR SPHR’s Alcohol programme researchers at University College London (UCL) have developed a brand new app that aims to help people get healthier and save money by drinking less alcohol.
