Doing Health Research Differently

Research is often conducted on communities rather than with them. Co-production increases the ability to work with communities, combining their ideas, interests, lived experiences and understanding of their own community with academic theory and practice. The approach develops workable solutions and could address health inequalities and research hesitancy. Through coproduction, closer working relationships between communities, the voluntary sector and universities are built. We will discuss our current co-production work in health and care research, the challenges, and our learning so far.

Dementia research in the news is nearly always about finding a cure, but just as important is how we can support the nearly 1 million people (and growing) who are living with dementia right now. While a diagnosis of dementia is life changing, people can still live full and active lives with the condition - but support in the community needs to be better. Thomas Morton will talk about the work of the University of Worcester's Association for Dementia Studies to improve this situation, including initiatives like Meeting Centres that aim to connect people to their communities and each other.