A substantial body of research describes the distribution, causes and potential reduction of health inequalities, yet little scholarship examines public understandings of these inequalities. Existing work is dominated by small-scale, qualitative studies of the experiences of specific communities. As a result, we know very little about what broader publics think about health inequalities; and even less about public views of potential policy responses. This is an important gap since previous research shows many researchers and policymakers believe proposals for ‘upstream’ policies are unlikely to attract sufficient public support to be viable. This mixed methods study combined a nationally representative survey with three two-day citizens' juries exploring public views of health inequalities and potential policy responses in three UK cities (Glasgow, Manchester and Liverpool) in July 2016. Comparing public opinion elicited via a survey to public reasoning generated through deliberative processes offers insight into the formation of public views. The results challenge perceptions that there is a lack of public support for upstream, macro-level policy proposals and instead demonstrate support for proposals aiming to tackle health inequalities via improvements to living and working conditions, with more limited support for proposals targeting individual behavioural change. At the same time, some macro-economic proposals, notably those involving tax increases, proved controversial among study participants and results varied markedly by data source. Our analysis suggests that this results from three intersecting factors: a resistance to ideas viewed as disempowering (which include, fundamentally, the idea that health inequalities exist); the prevalence of individualising and fatalistic discourses, which inform resistance to diverse policy proposals (but especially those that are more ‘upstream’, macro-level proposals); and a lack of trust in (local and national) government. This suggests that efforts to enhance public support for evidence-informed policy responses to health inequalities may struggle unless these broader challenges are also addressed.

This research note highlights the need to engage the voluntary sector in strategic emergency response and resilience planning with the local state. It draws on qualitative fieldwork in two Scottish local authorities, which explored service responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in high-poverty neighbourhoods. The data comprised 25 interviews with front-line workers and senior managers in voluntary sector and public sector organisations. Interviews were conducted during the spring 2020 lockdown and subsequent easing of restrictions. The article employs Young’s (2000) models of government to analyse the relationship between voluntary organisations and the state. The findings indicate that this iterative crisis requires the relational skills of the voluntary sector to supplement the local state and provide a sustainable response to the needs of vulnerable populations. There is a need for a new strategic and complementary relationship, one that fully engages locally embedded voluntary organisations at all stages of emergency response and resilience planning.

Recent efforts to counter the shortcomings of ‘evidence-based policy’ include strategies for democratising the utilisation of evidence. Deliberative forums involving a small number of lay citizens (‘mini publics’) are one of the most popular innovations. This chapter explores a specific type of mini-public known as ‘citizens’ juries’, using health inequalities in the UK as a case study. After introducing citizens’ juries, this chapter reflects on earlier research by the lead author, which identified a presumption among policy actors and researchers that the British public were unsupportive of the kind of macro-level policy proposals research suggests are required to reduce health inequalities. This chapter challenges this presumption via a review of existing qualitative studies, a national representative survey and three citizens’ juries. This analysis is used to reflect on the potential for citizens’ juries to help overcome the apparent tensions that exist between evidence, policy and publics. This chapter concludes that deliberative spaces offer constructive discursive spaces in which it appears possible to overcome tensions between evidence, policy and publics for at least some long-standing societal challenges. However, it also acknowledges reasons to be cautious, given limited political engagement, the high resources required, and challenges around ethically representing minority groups.

This article outlines how a team of academics, professional staff and students from a Scottish University in the United Kingdom worked with voluntary sector partners to achieve civic and ‘social purpose’ goals, through setting up a project called The Collaborative. This is a reflective paper that draws on collaborative autoethnography and is written collarboratively by that team of academics, professional staff and students. We explore how universities can achieve their civic engagement goals by serving as anchor institutions, and we develop a conceptual framework for how anchor institutions can enact their institutional mission of ‘social purpose’. We uncover important considerations for university initiatives aiming to improve academic and student engagement with community partners for social change, with three learning points around building relationships, building capacity, and barriers to engagement. Service-learning can be used as a pathway to becoming a civic university, however, there are structural barriers that need to be overcome. This is an account of an ethical fact-finding project, reflecting on our experience of working with the local voluntary sector, designed to facilitate the University’s better engagement with such collaborative ‘social purpose’ ventures.