The Health Equity Liverpool Project (HELP) builds on the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine’s (LSTM) experiences of tackling health inequities in the Global South and of adapting these methods to the Liverpool context. In 2021-2022 the ‘Reducing vaccine inequalities in Liverpool’pilot project demonstrated how community-led interventions could address COVID vaccine hesitancy in the catchment area of the Central Liverpool Primary Care Network. Liverpool’s Director of Public Health in his recent report “State of Health in the City: Liverpool 2040”states that unless we do things differently, the city’s residents are facing increasing inequalities which will have a direct impact on health. He calls for“radical and systemic changes”to the way the city responds to health challenges to prevent reduced life expectancy and ill health for residents in the city.
This HELP report describes how a community-led, creative health approach has been further adapted and rolled out to address pressing health equity needs. Community innovation teams have developed data-driven interventions to tackle low uptake of MMR immunisation and cancer screening in Liverpool’s primary care networks. We have broken down silos and demonstrated how the integration of creatives, people with lived experience, community organisations and health providers can impact health equity and build trust in the short term. It is our hope the sustainable scale-up of our community-led, creative health approach will catalyse a more equitable and listening healthcare system in the longer term and continue to improve the health of Liverpool’s poorest communities.
Professor Miriam Taegtmeyer, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, July 2024