Community powered research
#CelebratingEngagement
with the WellHome Community Ambassadors
“I just assumed that scientific research always involved members of the public.”
This statement, from Wendy Roudette, a Community Ambassador for the WellHome project, is revealing in more ways than one. Wendy highlights the gap between public perception of what research should be, versus how it is in reality. It raises the question: why doesn't research into community issues involve the actual communities?
WellHome addressed this disconnect by recruiting eleven White City locals as Community Ambassadors to engage their communities in air quality research. The project, started by the Environmental Research Group in 2021, won the 2024 Partner Award at the President's Awards for Excellence in Societal Engagement and has become a blueprint for community engagement.
The group included healthcare workers, business owners, professionals, volunteers, and activists across a broad spectrum of ages, cultures, languages, religions and ethnicities, representing the diversity and vibrancy of White City and its surrounding areas. Wendy and another Ambassador, Mounira Igheldane, shared their experiences with the project, detailing how they played an active role in hands-on scientific research despite their non-academic background.
Mounira is a single mother of two kids who moved to West London from Algeria in 2011. She was introduced to the project by Diana Varaden, lead scientist and Lecturer in Environmental Social Science and Health, whom she met at a local street party. Wendy, a White City resident of Caribbean descent, was brought in by Senior Community Partnerships and Engagement Manager Farial Missi, who she knew through What The Tech?!, a programme that provides advice to older residents on using new technology. Wendy also took part in Agents of Change, a Community Leadership Programme run by Imperial's Community Engagement Team for local women in the White City area.
Like all the Ambassadors, Wendy and Mounira are deeply embedded in their local neighbourhoods. The project required devices to be installed in local people’s homes to measure air quality, meaning that it made sense to involve people from the area who know the people within it and the concerns they face, including the subtle cultural nuances of an area as demographically diverse as White City. “One of the reasons we were recruited is because of our connections with the communities, but also our cultural backgrounds,” said Mounira. “Part of the project was to represent underrepresented groups, so the fact I could speak to the North African community was a plus.”
“We acted as a bridge between Imperial and the community, raising awareness of air pollution’s impact on our health" said Wendy.
As well as delivering workshops across local venues and running stands at family events, the team actively participated in the community by visiting centres, pinning flyers to the local supermarket noticeboards, and most importantly, speaking to people. The Ambassadors were trusted and given the freedom to work as they felt best, as Mounira said: “the beauty of the project was that there was no constraint on what you should do, when, with whom, and how.”
The Ambassadors were not just friendly faces. They were consulted in the development and production of the project, taking part in workshops to ensure materials were appropriately worded and suggesting alternative languages for translation. Over 110 families took part in the study, a hugely impressive sample size thanks to the involvement of community partners from outside the academic and scientific worlds. As Mounira notes, to be a PhD student or a researcher, “you’re mainly around the people that you’re conducting the research with, so how do you know how to approach your subjects? Because ‘subjects’ is technically what they are if you’re not connecting with them.”
“It was only towards the end of our Ambassadorship I realised that what we were doing was quite novel. I just assumed that scientific research always involved members of the public”, Wendy reflected. Novel as it may be, this project is proving to be a flagship piece of participatory research, being cited as an example for other projects at Imperial and beyond.
“Without realising it, we were an experiment, they have taken on board our input and want to do the same across Imperial and in the wider academic world.”
The process of learning and sharing knowledge has left a profound mark on the Ambassadors. “I’m meters away from the A40. The train line goes past me, I’ve got two buses and quite a bit of traffic as well. Until WellHome, I hadn’t joined the dots between the air quality and my asthma,” Wendy says, speaking from her living room, “it’s not just my health, it’s everybody’s.” This knowledge has enabled them to make informed decisions to benefit their health – from lighting incense to more conscious choices of house plants. Mounira is also keen to express the power of what she calls the “replicant effect”, the organic knowledge-exchange process of face-to-face conversation with people who know and trust you.
Whilst both Ambassadors acknowledge that the study is just one part of addressing air quality crises locally and globally, they feel empowered that steps – however small – are being taken in the right direction. Mounira cited an instance where air quality data helped to relocate one resident from dangerous housing, which was only made possible by public knowledge and subsequent pressure. Although they see real change as in the hands of politicians, the Ambassadors recognise the importance of public dissemination of knowledge, and their critical role within that.
Mounira described winning the award as “the cherry on top” of a project which resonated strongly with all the Ambassadors. She was heartened by the reaction amongst the scientists at the ceremony, who approached the Ambassadors with genuine curiosity and showed enthusiasm to embed similar practices into their own projects.
The WellHome project exemplifies how scientific research can evolve beyond traditional academic boundaries with the integration of local voices. Through positive and meaningful collaboration between researchers and local residents, communities are empowered, knowledge is created, and change is made possible. WellHome has since been celebrated in the 2024 Campaign for Science and Engineering report for developing research that directly benefits local communities. The project is a testament to Imperial’s commitment to the residents of White City, and its innovative model of co-production may well represent the future of effective, inclusive scientific research.
The WellHome Community Ambassadors: Mutthu Karappan, Tomassina Hessel, Helena Norland White, Susu Ali, Asha Ahmed, Nour Eddine Aboudihaj, Sanne Van den Bergh, Suber Abdikarim, Richard Nesbitt, Della Rozycka, Fatima Amin, Piia Lavila, Manon Chiari, Mounira Igheldane, Wendy Roudette
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