Research
Select the bars below to view research conducted about South Tyneside.
Deaths of Despair in South Tyneside
Deaths of Despair are deaths due to drug, suicide, and alcohol specific mortality (DSA). Drug overdoses have risen in England since 2012 and deaths due to suicide have risen since 2016. The North East is the English region with the highest rates of DSA mortality. Within the North East, South Tyneside is the local authority with the highest rate of alcohol specific mortality (28.3 per 100,000 population).
Relevant resources:
Deaths of Despair in South Tyneside Report
Local Authority Research Capacity
The goal of the research was to make a toolkit for South Tyneside Council. This toolkit aims to help them make decisions based on research. This would make their services better and fairer. Health and social care organisations have many challenges. These include an ageing population, long-term health problems, and not enough money. COVID-19 has made these problems worse. The research had many goals. These included finding out what research the council needed, who they worked with, and making a plan for research. Many different methods were used, such as focus groups and interviews. The result of the research was a toolkit. This toolkit would help the council do research and work with others in the region.
Relevant resources:
Impacts of Welfare and Benefits
Prospective Health Impacts of a Universal Basic Income
Studies show that giving everyone a basic income can improve people’s health. Researchers want to do more tests to see how this works. Not much research has been done on how this would work in different places. The researchers talked to people in Jarrow, South Tyneside, in the northeast of England. They wanted to know what they thought about basic income. The people who took part in the research study thought it would be good for their health. They had ideas about how it would work that were similar to other research. The findings help to understand more about basic income and health. They also gave ideas for future research.
Relevant resources:
Exploring the impact of Universal Credit on health and well-being
This project explored the impact of Universal Credit on claimants and service providers in South Tyneside. The study focused on how Universal Credit affects the health and well-being of participants and their families. Interviews with claimants and support staff provided detailed stories about their experiences. The researcher attended monthly meetings with relevant organisations to learn from and update members regarding the research.
Relevant resources:
Multiple and Complex Needs
Addressing Multiple and Complex Needs: A Scoping Review
As part of the Public Sector Reform Component of the Devolution Deal, there is a desire amongst partners within the North East of England to understand what can be done to support people with multiple and complex needs (MCNs). This highly vulnerable population is generally defined by their experience of several overlapping problems, such as mental ill-health, homelessness or very poor housing, substance misuse, domestic abuse, and involvement with the criminal justice system. They tend to fall through gaps between services because no-one takes overall responsibility for helping to break the cycle they are in. People with MCNs can find themselves in a downward spiral and experience poverty, stigma, discrimination, early morbidity and mortality. This significant individual impact is exacerbated by impacts on family, friends, communities and services.
People with MCNs rely heavily on reactive services and responses, such as crisis welfare support, temporary housing, emergency care, neighbourhood policing, safeguarding response and social care. These responses are rarely co-ordinated or designed to work with an individual collectively, moving them to a more stable situation. People with MCNs may also have needs below the threshold for support from key agencies, meaning that sustained and personalised support is not available. The project described in this report arose from a desire to identify evidence-based solutions to these problems. The aim was to provide answers to the following questions:
- How can we clearly define MCNs?
- What is the best evidence available on the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of approaches to working with people with MCNs in the UK?
- How might this evidence be used to inform efforts within the North East region to work differently in order to better meet the needs of people with MCNs?
These questions have been answered primarily through a scoping review of published and grey literature on interventions, programmes, services or approaches to working with people with MCNs. Local policy, practice and academic partners were also consulted (through an online survey and one-to-one conversations) as part of efforts to identify relevant literature and develop a shared understanding of the term ‘multiple and complex needs’. The outcomes of these activities are detailed in the remainder of this report.
Exploring Multiple and Complex Needs – hosted by the ARC NENC Inequalities Theme
The NIHR Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) North East and North Cumbria Inequalities and marginalised communities theme held an event on 11 October 2024 at Jarrow Focus, Jarrow.
A lot of ARC research over the past few years has focused on people who have found themselves particularly marginalised, such as people who are in contact with the criminal justice system, who experience homelessness or addiction, as well as other characteristics working inter-sectionally to make their experiences even more challenging, and their access to services, particularly preventative services, even more limited. This event will bring some of this evidence together, to both give a voice to those who are all too often unheard, and provide us with an opportunity to share and discuss findings in an informal setting.
This was a free event co-chaired by Deputy Leads for the ARC NENC Inequalities and marginalised communities theme, Prof Monique Lhussier, Director of the Centre for Health and Social Equity, Northumbria University and Tom Hall, Director of Public Health at South Tyneside Council.
Exploring Multiple and Complex Needs – hosted by the ARC NENC Inequalities Theme – ARC
South Tyneside Economic Assessment and Business Survey 2021
South Tyneside Council commissioned Hatch Urban Solutions and Winning Moves to undertake an independent economic assessment of South Tyneside.
The aim of the study was to provide a comprehensive and robust evidence base on South Tyneside’s recent performance and identify future growth prospects.
As part of this work, a survey was carried in late 2021 with South Tyneside businesses.
South Tyneside Economic Assessment
South Tyneside Business Survey
Resetting Services to Disabled Children Programme of Research
This programme of research aimed to learn from the pandemic to understand how services could be delivered better to provide high-quality care to disabled children and their families in times of emergency and as the UK NHS is remodelled. Dr Laura Gray from South Tyneside Council’s Educational Psychology Service was a collaborator in both papers linked below.
South Tyneside Health & Wellbeing Strategy – Community Insights Report
The community insights detailed in this report informed the development of the Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy (JHWS) for South Tyneside.
The research explored what influences people’s health and wellbeing in South Tyneside, and what could be done to help those who live, work and study in the borough to lead healthier, happier lives.
Community Insights – Interim Report – February 2022
Levelling Up in Practice: South Tyneside Interim Report
Think Tank Onward selected South Tyneside as one of its five ‘Levelling Up in Practice’ areas (July 2022). Analysis of quantitative data and focus groups and meetings with local businesses, local leaders and community organisations informed Onward’s findings and recommendations to ‘Level Up’ South Tyneside.
Levelling Up In Practice: South Tyneside Interim Report – Report – Onward
Levelling Up Locally: Final Report
The Reflecting Together Project – Loneliness and isolation experience by older people in South Tyneside
From November 2023 to November 2024 Stefanie Conradt and Churches Together South Tyneside (CTST) researched experiences of loneliness and social isolation of older people living in South Tyneside collaborating with a community of churches, social care and health care agencies and theological educators.
Reflecting Together Project – Regent’s Park College
South Tyneside Employment and Skills Report
In 2023, South Tyneside commissioned Rocket Science to better understand approaches to help South Tyneside residents to be economically included and to improve wellbeing. The research included a desk review, data review and interviews and focus groups with stakeholders.
South Tyneside – Employment & Skills Report
Good Food Local: The North East Report
This report provides data to help councils and food partnerships identify where to take action on critical food issues that affect the food system. The data helps councils make the case to continue to take action on food by illustrating where councils are making progress, and areas that might need more capacity and resource. It also includes case studies to share good practice and in future years it will include a league table to celebrate achievements and benchmark performance year on year to give a wider view of progress.
Good Food Local: The North East report | Sustain
Other Resources
AskFuse@10 – Celebratory Event and Launch of Seed Corn Funding Competition