STREAM 6
Social Innovation for Health, Social Care and Wellbeing

We welcome papers exploring the role of social innovation (broadly defined) on health, social care and wellbeing. The sorts of impacts we imagine that social innovations might seek to address could be at the level of individuals, communities, health and social care systems, or wider systems-level impacts on health, care and well-being. Typical topics of interest might include: the social impact of new health and social care technologies; new forms of relationship between the state and civil society focused on addressing a particular health or social care issue; social innovation approaches to shaping a new ‘wellbeing economy’; or the impact of community-led interventions on addressing ‘upstream’ factors in the social environment that we know shape how we live, work and age.

The role of social innovation(s) in addressing crucial issues such as health equity (Farmer et al., 2018; Mason et al., 2015) remains of critical research importance. Empirical work is still required on the potential of a whole range of social innovations on health, social care and wellbeing, including the role of social and micro enterprises (Roy et al., 2014; Roy and Farmer, 2021, Needham et al., 2018), microfinance institutions, (Ibrahim et al., 2021; McHugh et al., 2017) and even community-led initiatives such as ‘Men’s Sheds’ (Kelly et al., 2019). Crucially, we welcome papers that bring a social innovation lens to bear to address specific health or social care challenges (e.g., Calò et al., 2019; Hall et al., 2015). We especially welcome imaginative papers in this stream that look to extend theoretical and methodological innovation in this area in new and exciting ways.

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REFERENCES:

Calò, F., Roy, M.J., Donaldson, C., Teasdale, S. and Baglioni, S. (2019), “Exploring the Contribution of Social Enterprise to Health and Social Care: A Realist Evaluation”, Social Science & Medicine, Vol. 222, pp. 154–161.

Farmer, J., Carlisle, K., Dickson-Swift, V., Teasdale, S., Kenny, A., Taylor, J., Croker, F., et al. (2018), “Applying Social Innovation Theory to Examine How Community Co-Designed Health Services Develop: Using a Case Study Approach and Mixed Methods”, BMC Health Services Research, Vol. 18 No. 1, available at:https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-018-2852-0.

Hall, K., Miller, R. and Millar, R. (2015), “Public, Private or Neither? Analysing the Publicness of Health Care Social Enterprises”, Public Management Review, pp. 1–19.

Ibrahim, F., McHugh, N., Biosca, O., Baker, R., Laxton, T. and Donaldson, C. (2021), “Microcredit as a Public Health Initiative? Exploring Mechanisms and Pathways to Health and Wellbeing”, Social Science & Medicine, Vol. 270, p. 113633.

Kelly, D., Steiner, A., Mason, H. and Teasdale, S. (2019), “Men’s Sheds: A Conceptual Exploration of the Causal Pathways for Health and Well-Being”, Health & Social Care in the Community, Vol. 27 No. 5, pp. 1147–1157.

Mason, C., Barraket, J., Friel, S., O’Rourke, K. and Stenta, C.-P. (2015), “Social Innovation for the Promotion of Health Equity”, Health Promotion International, Vol. 30 No. suppl 2, pp. ii116–ii125.

McHugh, N., Biosca, O. and Donaldson, C. (2017), “From Wealth to Health: Evaluating Microfinance as a Complex Intervention”, Evaluation, Vol. 23 No. 2, pp. 209–225.

Roy, M.J., Donaldson, C., Baker, R. and Kerr, S. (2014), “The Potential of Social Enterprise to Enhance Health and Well-Being: A Model and Systematic Review”, Social Science & Medicine, Vol. 123, pp. 182–193.

Roy, M.J. and Farmer, J. (Eds.). (2021), Social Enterprise, Health and Wellbeing: Theory, Methods and Practice, Routledge, Abingdon, Oxon.