Supporting Healthy and Inclusive Neighbourhood Environments (SHINE) HIT 2023-24

SHINE HIT aims to use sound science, community voices and innovation to turn Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire into a healthier region, reduce health inequities, and closely align health, well-being and society. SHINE HIT does not target specific diseases and conditions but aims to promote better environments for people and the planet. Here are some of the highlights from the HIT in 2023-24.

5th July 2024

New leadership team

Long-standing HIT co-directors Suzanne Audrey and Adrian Davis stepped down in 2023. Their successors are Dr Sharea Ijaz, Research Fellow in Evidence Synthesis at the University of Bristol and NIHR ARC West, and Researcher-in-Residence for Bristol City Council’s public health and communities team and Professor Jane Powell (chair), Professor of Public Health Economics and Director of the Centre for Public Health and Wellbeing at UWE Bristol. Sally Hogg, Consultant in Public Health, Healthy People, Healthy Place, Bristol City Council continues as a co-director of SHINE. Sally is the lead for Locality Partnerships across Bristol, co-director of the Healthy Weight HIT, a member of Inner City and East (ICE) Locality Partnership and co-chair of the Children and Young Peoples’ Inequalities Group ICE.

Broadening membership

Charlee Bennett from Your Parks Bristol and Bath, Steve Speirs from the Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire Integrated Care Board and Roy Kareem from Bright Green Future have joined the HIT to bring green social prescribing and the voice of under-served communities into its membership.

This year Your Parks was awarded Heritage Lottery Funding to explore the reasons why ethnically diverse communities in the Barton Hill area of Bristol are reluctant to access local parks. The HIT is supporting introductions to key groups and leads in equality, diversity and inclusion, and will be acknowledged in this research.

Awareness raising, public engagement and networking

Co-director Jane Powell is a Co-Investigator and UWE Bristol institutional lead of Tackling the Root causes Upstream of Unhealthy Urban Development (TRUUD) research consortium led by the University of Bristol. TRUUD aims to generate evidence that will help change urban planning policy and practice in the UK by influencing housing and transport and other wider determinants of health. This year, TRUUD worked with Jo White and Andy Gibson at UWE Bristol, in a public engagement project in which families explain the toll of living in unhealthy places with overcrowding, lack of green space, damp, noisy or polluted environments, and the impact on their physical and mental health.

SHINE HIT hosted two public facing events about walking:

‘Walking in Bristol’ May 2023 attracted 86 attendees. It included a presentation from Bristol Steppin’ Sistas on the barriers women of colour experience when walking. Feedback was very positive.
‘Is it Safe to Walk’ an event with over one hundred participants held in November 2023 highlighted the challenges of walking in the urban environment for communities with protected characteristics.

These events have enabled SHINE to extend its network with the One City Transport Board and the new Primary Care Green Team.

HIT public contributor Ben Barker produced Bristol’s Garden Rewilding Project with students from UWE, an informative video which has supported a social movement in communities to develop an urban nature reserve in South Bristol demonstrating the importance of individuals rewilding their gardens.

Funding enabled in 2023-24

SHINE HIT helped secure £10,000 in 2023-24 for projects to generate research evidence, improve outcomes and address health inequalities in the region.