New report: The role of community assets in tackling UK health inequalities through community engagement and partnerships in social prescribing.
Last year, the Abundance Project, together with six other projects from the Mobilising Community Assets to Tackle Health Inequalities programme – Arts4Us, ReCITE, Realities, Rural Health Equity, ARCHES and Connecting Roots – took part in an online survey to share the successes and challenges arising from our work in social prescribing.
The data collected via the survey formed the basis of a report, The role of community assets in tackling UK health inequalities through community engagement and partnerships in social prescribing, Thomson LJM and Chatterjee HJ (2026), recently published in Frontiers in Public Health (14:1761446).
In addition to the survey, the study draws on information shared quarterly by participating projects on our academic and creative outputs, events, partnerships, posts, ways of working, and audiences or communities.
Based on these data, this study proposes an approach to social prescribing that combines models of recovery and peer support underpinned by self-determination theory to improve social inclusion and quality of life. Recommendations include a consortium-based approach to person-centered care working closely with local populations and public health, where provision is co-located and co-delivered in conjunction with relevant data concerning health conditions and the wider social determinants to address the root causes of health inequalities.
The full study can be found in Frontiers in Public Health.