Health

Supervisors / contacts: Dr Gavin Ward

The University of Wolverhampton takes its role as a member of its local community seriously. The City and Walsall campuses are located within diverse communities that face challenging socioeconomic and health inequalities. Knowing how to support members of these communities to integrate Physical Activity to their lives to support the growth of their personal health resources and enrich their health outcomes is vital to levelling up health inequalities.

Knowing how to work with local partners such as housing associations, to support local residents to access physical activity and grow the capacity of communities to engage in physical activity, will be.

the central drivers to this project. Establishing initial health screening, working with partners to promote physical activity to residents, organising physical activity sessions and exploring empowering ways to capture impact will drive the methodological approach. The candidate will benefit from the work of university researchers from other faculties within the university to support the success of academic and partner outcomes.

The skill sets developed by completing this project will demonstrate a proven track record in successful project management with community partners, impactful intervention mapping and production of peer reviewed academic outputs.

Supervisors / contacts: Dr Gavin Ward

Building on previous work at the University this project will extend a feasibility study aimed at understanding how to empower people living with RA to engage in physical activity. The research will develop physical activity and empowerment interventions to analyse effective ways of supporting people living with RA to initiate, maintain or grow their physical activity and exercise behaviours. Developing educational packages for clinicians and people living with RA, refining the use of motivational support, exploring co-creation of physical activity and use of technology will feature as the core architecture of this project.

The skill sets developed through project completion will demonstrate a proven track record of project management with clinical and community partners, delivery of physical activity interventions and people focussed methodology. These skill sets are in increasing demand with a rapidly aging population and growing health inequalities.