September 2002
Research and Teaching

Evaluation of Bradford Health Action Zone

A research evaluation team has produced a report on the impact of Bradford Health Action Zone (HAZ) on the health of the population of the Bradford District.

The three-year evaluation was led by Pro-Vice-Chancellor Professor Jeff Lucas, Evaluation Co-ordinator Janet Henderson and Project Officer Alison Torn, from the School of Health Studies. It looked at whether the Department of Health funded flagship pilot - one of 26 across England - has contributed to reducing inequalities and improving health gain for the most deprived areas of the district.

Left to right: Pro-Vice-Chancellor Professor Jeff Lucas, Project Officer Alison Torn, and Evaluation Co-ordinator Janet Henderson.

The team worked in partnership with staff from the Schools of Health Studies, Social and International Studies, Management, and Life Sciences to give evaluation support to over 140 projects. Additional evaluative studies have been carried out by the University in priority areas such as rehabilitation, Best Value, Balanced Scorecard, smoking cessation, drugs misuse, welfare benefits advisers and community involvement and Housing for Healthier Hearts. The team carried out its own study of neighbourhoods in order to assess the impact of HAZ activity across the district.

There has been national HAZ networking and collaboration with members of the national evaluation team at the Universities of Glasgow and Birmingham. Bradford is one of the sites selected by the Birmingham team to collaborate on the partnership working and community involvement aspects of the evaluation.

Jeff said: "Findings in the University of Bradford's report indicate that the innovatory and flexible methods of planning and delivering health and social care services through HAZ funding have enabled the successful targeting and accessing of populations who are at risk of illness and social exclusion.

"It also highlights lessons learned from the process, including the difficulties posed by tight timescales, short-term funding and the transition from 'experiment' to sustainable service."

The report concluded that the HAZ has been a powerful mechanism for change: the challenge is to maintain the innovatory way of working in health care either in mainstream services or in sustained funding of other sectors such as voluntary agencies.

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