Ten projects chosen to be part of the Health Foundation’s £1.5m programme to understand the impact of COVID-19 on service change and health inequalities

The 10 UK-focused projects will explore:

• how health and social care service delivery has changed in light of COVID-19
• the impact of COVID-19 on health inequalities and the wider determinants of health.

The projects are all based around highly applied research that has direct relevance to policy and practice, and are run by multidisciplinary teams that combine expertise from a broad range of disciplines. They will each involve patients, the public and/or people with lived experiences.

The findings from these projects will inform policy and/or service delivery decisions about the future of health and care services, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Each team will receive funding of between £100,000 and £200,000 for projects that will run for up to 12 months.

Dr Jennifer Dixon, Chief Executive of the Health Foundation, said:

'The COVID-19 pandemic has led to huge and rapid changes to the way that health and social care is delivered. The pandemic has also magnified pre-existing health inequalities in this country.

'This grant programme investigates these two areas. Are the changes in services beneficial and how did rapid change in provision happen? And what can we learn from the disproportionate effect COVID had on certain population groups? The aim is to use these insights to help future policy and service delivery decisions that could benefit the population.'

The projects are:

• The Born in Bradford (BiB) COVID-19 research study
  BiB, based at Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
  Research into changes in health, wellbeing and economic security throughout the COVID-19 pandemic in ethnically diverse families living in Bradford, using an adaptive, mixed methods, longitudinal study.
• Adult social care and safeguarding during COVID-19: a large-scale mixed methods study 
  Keele University
  Research into the impact of COVID-19 on legal obligations within adult social care and safeguarding across England and Wales, to provide an understanding of how the pandemic has affected adults with care and support needs, and those who are at risk of abuse or neglect.
• Ethnic inequalities in mortality and service use in people with mental disorders and multi-morbidities during the COVID-19 pandemic 
  King’s College London
  A project to explore whether COVID-19 has exacerbated ethnic health inequalities in adults with mental health disorders and physical health multi-morbidities, using a mixed-methods approach.
• Prioritising patients for emergency surgery or not: the impact of COVID-19 (ESORT-C19) 
  London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
  Research on the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of emergency surgery versus conservative management, to inform decision-making during the COVID-19 recovery period.
• Does place matter? An examination of geographical inequalities in COVID-19 in England 
  Newcastle University
  Research into what the geographical and social inequalities are in COVID-19 cases and deaths in England, and which individual and place-based factors explain these inequalities.
• Sustaining community-led action in recovery: learning lessons from the community response to COVID-19 in Wales 
  Public Health Wales
  Research project to understand the role of community-led action as a protective factor against widening health inequalities during, and in recovery from, the COVID-19 pandemic.
• The impact of COVID-19 on service provision and maternal and neonatal outcomes, through the lens of inequalities 
  Queen Mary University of London
  Research into whether changes in how maternity care has been delivered during the COVID-19 pandemic have widened or narrowed existing inequalities.
• Reshaping secondary care consultations after COVID-19: the role of asynchronous consultation methods 
  University of Aberdeen
  A project to explore the roll out of ‘asynchronous’ consultations at scale in NHS Grampian, to provide practical learning for future use across the NHS, using mixed research methods.
• Understanding the impacts of income and welfare policy responses to COVID-19 on inequalities in mental health: a microsimulation model 
  University of Glasgow
  Research to assess the potential impact of economic and welfare policy responses to COVID-19 on mental health and mental health inequalities, including who is impacted the most and what the likely consequences will be.
• Understanding and learning from the impact of changes in colorectal cancer care delivery in light of COVID-19 and their interplay with socioeconomic inequalities 
  University of Surrey
  Research to help understand the impact of changes in health service delivery on cancer care during the COVID-19 pandemic, using colorectal cancer as an exemplar.