New report charts the impact of community-led health research across South-East England

This report summarises impact and stories from the NHS England-funded Community Participatory Action Research (CPAR) programme, delivered in partnership between the University of Reading’s PAR Team, NHS England, the Scottish Community Development Centre (SCDC), and the Institute for Voluntary Action Research (IVAR). CPAR trains community members to design and lead research into the health inequalities affecting their own communities, working as equal partners with the system and turning findings into action. 

Spanning three cohorts from 2021 to 2025, the programme worked with communities facing the impacts of COVID-19, the cost-of-living crisis, and entrenched health inequalities. Key findings from the report include: 

• 85 community researchers were trained and supported across the South-East, designing and delivering over 40 culturally and socially responsive research projects. 

• Over 4,500 community participants were engaged directly, with findings reaching an estimated 10,000 people through wider dissemination. 

• The programme is building a more diverse health and care workforce. Of 38 researchers surveyed, 12 secured new employment, self-employment, internships, or further and higher education as a direct result, and over a third now work in health, care, or public health roles. 

• Over a third of partner organisations secured additional funding using CPAR research as evidence, including £500,000 awarded to Surrey Minority Ethnic Forum to continue its maternal health work. 

• Findings have shaped NHS service redesign and local authority strategy on maternal health, mental health, dementia, and housing, and have been published in the British Journal of General Practice and the Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health. 

• The nationally recognised PAR Toolkit and a new CPAR Alumni Network, launched in 2025, are sustaining the work well beyond the life of the programme. 

Together, these outcomes point to a wider shift the report captures well: from communities being the subjects of research to communities shaping and leading how institutions understand and respond to health inequalities. 

You can download the full CPAR Impact Report 2021–2025, including case studies and community researcher voices, on the Community-Based Research publications page.