Our health is impacted by many things around us – our homes, our jobs, our income, our education, our environment, as well as stigma and discrimination – the building blocks of health. We know that when these things aren’t working well, the trend is that people die younger and are ill for longer. We also know that people who experience social and economic disadvantage are more likely to experience poor housing, low income, discrimination and insecure jobs.
Our Health Justice Fund provides a route through which communities experiencing the sharp end of health inequalities can work with us, using their experience and practice, to improve health for the long term.
The fund will prioritise thematic areas based on what people most affected by these issues have told us is needed and what the evidence points towards.
The learning and evidence we gain (from independent evaluation and on-the-ground practice) will be used to influence decision makers and support action that leads to real health justice for communities across Great Britain.
Features of the fund include: working in partnership, connecting projects through networks, evaluating and learning as we go, funding, using evidence to make the case for change, communicating what we’re doing, being flexible in our approach, and evolving our approach based on what we learn from communities most affected by health inequalities.
Our current priorities
In 2024, we are working on priority areas which include housing (Homes for Health), strategic influencing (Partnerships for Health) and nature and the environment (Nature for Health). These and future priorities will evolve and change over time based on what communities tell us they need.
Homes for Health
Homes for Health is a collaboration between the Trust and experts from housing, community, and racial justice civil society organisations, delivering projects that respond to the growing problem of unfit private and social rented homes and their effects on tenants’ physical and mental health.
Unequal access to affordable, secure and good quality homes means that, for many people, poor housing is a direct cause of short and long-term health issues. Too many people in England, Scotland and Wales are living in homes that are negatively impacting their health, particularly in the private and social rented sectors. Find out more about housing as a building block of health and Homes for Health.
Partnerships for Health
Through Partnerships for Health, the Trust aims to be agile and responsive to current health challenges via organisations that are representative of, or working very closely with, communities most affected by health inequalities. We will support projects that are explicitly seeking to influence decision-makers and/or improve practice to address health inequalities, with the aim of ultimately improving health outcomes for communities experiencing the most significant health inequalities.
We seek to work with organisations addressing the building blocks of health in a way that has the potential to achieve significant impact in the pursuit of health justice. We will support work that is highly focused on systemic, preventative change and longer-term impact, and is directly aligned to our mission and priorities.
Examples of what might be funded could include (but is not limited to):
- Increasing the voices of people most impacted by health inequalities so that they are heard and responded to by decision-makers
- Influencing local or regional decision-making around health inequalities
- Action to ensure health equity is embedded in local policy/practice
- Building new evidence around how to address health inequalities for minoritised communities
- Convening groups of people with lived experience to lead a specific piece of health inequalities policy/influencing work
- Maximising an opportunity to shift local, regional or national thinking around systemic approaches to addressing health inequalities.
We are currently considering our first group of enquiries to this priority, and plan to reopen by early spring. We expect to award approximately five grants over a period of 12 months.
Nature for Health
Nature for Health supports improved mental health through nature.
We know that there is a mental health crisis in Great Britain, made worse by the rising costs of living, poor housing conditions, low income, lack of access to natural spaces, and discrimination. We also know that this crisis is fixable. Nature for Health will improve access to natural spaces and nature-based activities in order to improve mental health for people experiencing socio-economic disadvantage, marginalisation and discrimination. Nature for Health was open for stage one applications in February/March 2024. Find out more about Nature for Health.
Find out more
We will be keeping people updated on ways to get involved in our new and emerging priorities through our newsletter and on social media. Sign up and follow us below.
