Diverse perspectives on healthy environments: how community engagement is shaping research
By Theo Bass, UKRI Public Engagement Team
Lockdown has shown how important the natural environment is for our mental and physical health. Just over 40 per cent of adults say that nature and wildlife has been even more important to their wellbeing since coronavirus restrictions began.
Yet the pandemic has also shone new light on the inequalities of who uses, and has access to, these spaces.
The Monitor of Engagement with the Natural Environment tells us that certain groups are less likely to engage with the natural environment, including ethnic minority groups, those from lower socio-economic groups and people with disabilities. These groups don’t tend to be well represented in the environmental science community or in organisations that make decisions about funding research either.
Last year the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) commissioned a project to host conversations about the future of its healthy environment research programmes involving nearly 100 people from underrepresented backgrounds. In this post we’ll describe why we did the project, how it was run and what we learned, in the hope that it may inspire other funders, policymakers or regulators interested in involving more diverse voices in their decision-making.
What is a healthy environment?
The term healthy environment is interpreted and understood by the public in many ways. For some it can invoke a ‘traditional’ picture of rolling hills or farmed countryside, ancient woodland or forests, but for others it might include more built-up urban or industrial environments. Some views can create challenges for policymakers or funders, for example if landscapes considered to be aesthetically beautiful may not be particularly good for wildlife or biodiversity.
As NERC plans the future of its healthy environment programmes, the team wanted to gain a deeper understanding of public views on this topic, and to make decisions that reflect a more diverse range of societal needs and values.
NERC also wanted to demonstrate that, even with the disruptions on face-to-face activities caused by the pandemic, it is still possible to involve people in meaningful conversations about research from the comfort of their homes. With this in mind, innovation lab the Helix Centre and film production company Beard Askew designed an approach which put creativity and online participation at its core.
Recruiting diverse community voices
While traditional dialogue and deliberation projects bring together diverse and broadly representative samples of people, this can make it easy for the views of minority groups to get lost.
Instead, this project began by recruiting 9 community ‘hosts’ targeting under-represented groups, who in turn invited a further 10 participants to take part from their community.
By asking the hosts to recruit from their own networks, participants came to the workshops with shared experiences and knowledge of their local community, and so were more willing to share their thoughts and ideas. There was also training for community hosts to facilitate the conversations themselves to help people feel more at ease.
All participants were sent a series of films along with cardboard VR headsets, which brought complex research to life and allowed people to immerse themselves in different environments. Through an online activity (using Miro) people were then asked to prioritize different areas of research and explain their thinking before in-depth discussions over Zoom.
What did we learn?
Participants provided rich insights into what they perceived as a healthy environment and what they wanted from research in this area.
They prioritised research that has a long-term focus, with an emphasis on sustainability and social equity. There was a strong emphasis on the social determinants of healthy environments — such as social housing, accessibility and making healthy lifestyles affordable — suggesting a need for inter and transdisciplinary research.
People saw local community spaces, such as allotments or communal gardens, as important features of healthy environments. There was a desire for community action and to take part in environmental research to improve local outcomes, highlighting an opportunity for NERC to support more place-based, participatory, and action-oriented research that draws on people’s local knowledge and experiences.
They also wanted to see research which aimed to prevent the root causes of environmental problems that pose a risk to human health, rather than treat symptoms. Areas that stood out included improving air quality in cities and innovative approaches to prevent the spread of infectious diseases (e.g. wastewater monitoring).
A model for more inclusive research priority-setting
Without input from diverse groups, public funders like NERC risk funding research that creates benefits for some people at the expense of others. At worst, this could increase the gap between those who can live healthy lives and those who cannot.
While NERC/UKRI is looking at a range of ways it can improve diversity across the environmental research sector, this project was a start in trying to involve underrepresented groups in discussions about the research it funds. NERC will use the insights from the project to inform decisions about what research topics it will support in the future.
The project’s use of online community engagement combined with creative methods could provide a model for other funders and policymakers interested in involving more diverse voices in the research prioritization process. As world leaders meet for the most important climate-related event of their year (COP- 26), the project also provides an example of how public engagement can help elevate the voices of people and communities least represented in conversations about the environment.
As we explore future opportunities, we are interested in sharing lessons and hearing from others who are running similar projects. If you’d like to discuss community engagement with us, please get in touch with theo.bass@ukri.org. We’d love to hear from you.
Want to know more?
If you’re a UK taxpayer, your contributions help fund engagement work like this, via UK Research and Innovation — the funding body that allocates government funds for research — and the Natural Environment Research Council. You can read more about what we do here. Or click here to read the full Healthy Environment, Diverse Perspectives report.
