The British Academy’s role in strengthening
policy making
Helen Haggart, Senior Policy Adviser
February 2014
The British Academy
The British Academy is the UK’s independent
national academy representing the humanities and
social sciences.
For over a century it has supported and celebrated
the best in UK and international research and
helped connect the expertise of those working in
these disciplines with the wider public.
Public Policy at the British Academy
How we engage with policy makers
• Regular meetings with key stakeholders
• Working in partnership with others
• Hosting events and conferences on relevant
topics
• Publishing reports on a particular policy issue
• Consultation responses and briefings
• Briefing them on our reports
• Publishing opinion pieces and articles in the
media
“If you could do one thing...”
A collection of nine proposals from
leading social scientists setting out
ways that policy makers at a local
level could improve the health of
their communities and reduce
health inequalities.
Background to the project
Forum with Sir Michael Marmot in Oct 2011
bringing together medical practitioners and social
scientists
The Steering Group for the project
Jessica Allen, Deputy Director of IHE at UCL
Ian Gilmore, Professor of Medicine
Kate Pickett, Professor of Inequalities
Antony Heath FBA, Professor of Sociology
Fiona Godlee, Editor of BMJ
Jim McManus, Director of Public Health
Jane Roberts, Consultant Psychiatrist
Miles Hewstone FBA, Professor Social Psychology
What the project aimed to do
• Build on the Marmot review and not replicate it
• Give a good overview of some of the
socioeconomic factors affecting health
inequalities and the evidence base for those
areas
• Give a fresh perspective to an area that has
already received a lot of attention
• An easy to read / accessible report that will
appeal to policy makers at a local and national
level, and to the broader public
The 9 interventions
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Implement a living wage
Increase early childhood education
Implement 20mph speed limits
Tackle health-related ‘worklessness’
Use participatory budgeting to improve mental capital
Increase the scope of adult and further education
Improve the employment conditions of public sector
workers
8. Build ‘age-friendly’ communities and cities
9. Evaluate policies for evidence of cost-effectiveness
1. Implement a living wage - Kate Pickett
• More unequal societies tend to have poorer health outcomes
• A living wage will provide
–
–
–
–
–
–
An incentive to work
A way out of in-work poverty
Improvements in work quality and productivity
Falls in absenteeism
Positive impacts on recruitment and retention
A way of directly addressing inequalities in health + wellbeing
• Practical action being taken by Fairness Commissions in York,
Islington, Newcastle, Liverpool, Sheffield + Blackpool
2. Increase early childhood education
– Edward Melhuish
• Need for provision of universal and high-quality
early childhood education and care
• Needs to be high quality care – problems with Sure
Start were that not all centres were providing
sufficient high quality education and care
• Benefits population as a whole but even greater
benefits for children from disadvantaged
backgrounds
3. Implement 20mph speed limits –
Danny Dorling
• People are at most risk of being hurt or killed by cars in
the poorest parts of towns and cities.
• Easily enacted at a local level, this literal slow down would
reduce the risk of pedestrian - especially child - fatalities
• Many UK cities and towns have already implemented it –
Birmingham, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Islington, Newcastle...
• Initial evidence from the UK suggests it is having a
significant impact and there is longer term evidence from
Sweden
4. Tackle health-related worklessness Clare Bambra
• Being sick or disabled reduces an individual’s
employment prospects
• Health-related job losses are more likely in lower
socio-economic groups
• Focus on managing the ill health of those out of work
first, rather than focussing on skills and employability
• Following NICE guidance, County Durham
implemented a health-first approach with promising
results
5. Use participatory budgeting – Kwame
McKenzie
• HWB should use participatory budgeting to make decisions
on public health priorities and to choose interventions
• LAs need to engage with the concept of mental capital and
an effective way to do this is to increase the access of the
most marginalised to influencing decisions and resource
allocations
• Results show that participatory budgeting provides more
equitable spending, better quality of life, increased
satisfaction and greater transparency
• Been used in the UK for over 10 years with 150 projects
6. Increase the scope of adult & further
education – Chandola & Jenkins
• A large part of health inequality is accounted for by poor
health among those who leave school without any
qualifications.
• Research shows that adult learning is associated with
better health and wellbeing
• A successful policy framework would include:
–Financial support for adults who left school with no qualifications
–Literacy and numeracy courses for adults
–Encouragement of greater participation in learning amongst older
adults
–Harnessing the role of further & adult education in prioritising
needs at a local level
7. Improve employment conditions of
public sector workers – James Nazroo
• Social and economic inequalities are the main
drivers of ethnic inequalities in health
• There should be substantial policy development in
this area
• There are large numbers of ethnic minority groups
in the public sector workforce
• LAs should set standards regarding good,
equitable employment practices
8. Build age-friendly communities – Hal
Kendig and Chris Phillipson
• Place matters and older people living in urban
areas face issues around social integration, access
to services, leisure and mobility
• Action to address these will improve the
independence, participation, health and
wellbeing of older people
• The WHO highlights the efforts of Manchester
and York to become age-friendly cities
9. Evaluate policies for evidence of costeffectiveness – Alan Maynard
• Local policy makers should prioritise the use of
cost-effectiveness evidence when choosing
interventions to reduce inequality
• Pilot any new practices, consider the results and
share the findings
• Better use should be made of health economists
and their value better recognised
• Without evaluation, inequalities will be preserved,
at best, and more likely worsen
Aims of the report
To embolden local policy makers to broaden the
range of policy approaches used to reduce
health inequalities and tackle some of the
trickier structural and economic issues such as
planning, worklessness and income inequality,
as well as behavioural issues such as smoking
and alcohol abuse.
5 steps for embedding in policy making
1. LAs need to own the fact that what they do
influences the health of their population
2. Build good relationships with local academics in
social sciences as well as biomedical and
behavioural
3. Discuss across LAs the contributions which each
function can make to improving health
4. Create a public health strategy which balances
behavioural and structural/societal interventions
5. Evaluate interventions properly to ensure
lessons are learned
Contact and more information
Helen Haggart, Senior Policy Adviser
h.haggart@britac.ac.uk
www.britac.ac.uk/policy
@britac_news