Centre for Coastal Communities

Based in one of Britain’s major coastal cities, the Centre for Coastal Communities brings together one of the few critical masses of academic researchers in any UK university, who have a proven track record on coastal communities and strong collaborative links with public, private and third sectors. Working with our partners, we are uniquely placed to co-ordinate problem identification and co-create solutions, committing to an area of research that traditionally has seen limited investigation of the problems.

Unemployment, low incomes, seasonal jobs, low educational attainment, poor social mobility, high rates of anti-depressant and opioid prescribing, and poor health outcomes mean coastal communities are facing a high burden of health challenges. The ‘levelling up' of Britain’s periphery to create dynamic, thriving coastal communities is difficult to achieve.

A number of NIHR funded Applied Research Collaborations (ARCs) have been working together to collaborate on co-developing and evaluating public health initiatives to improve health and wellbeing and address health inequalities within depressed coastal populations and areas. These represent peripheral areas in the North West, North East, East, South East and South West of England. All of the participating ARCs work well with their Local Authorities and other key partners. This grouping also provides opportunities to scale up research initiatives to support generalisability.

For more information about the Coastal ARC group, please contact Professor Mark Gabbay: M.B.Gabbay@liverpool.ac.uk