Health Determinants Research Collaborations (HDRC) Evaluation

Background

There has been a growing awareness over the past decade of the need to foster more evaluative public health research, particularly collaborations between academics and local government, to develop the evidence-base for public health and to address health inequalities.

To improve research infrastructure in LAs, the NIHR Health Determinants Research Collaborations (HDRC) scheme has been launched to develop sustainable capacity and capability for research in LAs to improve health and reduce health inequalities affecting their local area. This scheme is based in and led by the LAs with a focus on improving the wider determinants of health and developing innovative collaborations with the academic sector. NIHR invited LAs across the UK to apply for funding. By October 2022, 10 HDRCs were fully funded (£50 million across the 10 teams) and a further three teams received £200,000 each development funding with a view to being fully funded at the end of the year. A second call was launched in January 2023 and there are now 30 HDRCs.

This project was undertaken at LSHTM as a PH-PRU ‘Responsive’ project to evaluate the initial phase of the HDRC scheme and to make recommendations for its development.

Objectives

1. To evaluate the initial phase of the HDRC scheme to capture learning around what did and did not work.
2. Make recommendations on the further development of the scheme.

Methods

There are specific guidelines for process and formative evaluations. While this project used elements of these, the main aim was to conduct a light-touch evaluation of the scheme to date (broadly defined, as this is not an evaluation of effectiveness) and make recommendations for its development. This was a qualitative research study based on stakeholder interviews and a scoping review of relevant documents. An advisory panel was established: Matt Egan (LSHTM), Martin White (Cambridge) Ashley Adamson (Newcastle), and a Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) member, who reviewed information sheets and consent forms as well as the topic guide and will comment on dissemination activities.

Interviews
Interviewee selection was purposive and snowballed with approximately four representatives from each of the fully funded 10 HDRCs and one member each from the three HDRCs in the development year.

Between August 2023- January 2024, we carried out 30 semi-structured in-depth interviews including 24 LA participants; 2 HEI members; 2 PPIE members and 2 NIHR participants. Interviews were conducted online by one research team member who took field notes and wrote interview reflection forms after each interview. Interviews lasted between 30 and 80 minutes with an average of about one hour and were audio recorded and transcribed. Where participants did not consent to an audio recording, the interviewer took additional notes. The topic guide was developed and amended throughout the interview process, covering themes such as: setting up HDRCs teams; commissioning process; and barriers and facilitators to the programme. Transcripts were coded in NVivo using thematic framework analysis. Initial coding was conducted by the interviewer and each code was validated independently by another research team member. Where coding discrepancies occurred, these were discussed to agree on refinements to the coding framework.

Document review
We conducted a scoping review of documents. Interviewees were asked to provide relevant documents including the applications forms for the scheme. A thematic approach was used to analyze the documents to provide information on the applications and processes, and to cross-reference interview data.

Final report