SDG 3 - Good Health and Wellbeing
Research
Dr Marcello Bertotti, associate professor at the Institute of Connected Communities (ICC), is pushing for social prescribing to be more strongly focused on young people across the UK and internationally. Social prescribing is a service where doctors and other professionals can refer people suffering from mental health problems to connect and participate in community-based activities designed to improve mental health and well-being. While social prescribing was introduced as an all-age service in the 2019 NHS Long-Term Plan, it has been focused primarily on adults. In an article published in The Lancet, Dr Bertotti calls for the NHS to locate more resources to develop social prescribing for children and young people. Dr Bertotti has been involved in several funded research projects on social prescribing for children and young people, including in Italy and Portugal. He has also led the first evaluation of social prescribing for children and young people in the United Kingdom, a two-year study in Luton, Sheffield, and Brighton in collaboration with StreetGames, a national charity supporting young people.
Operations
In December 2022, the University of East London became one of only five universities in the UK to be granted the Mental Health Charter Award. The award, created by Student Minds, recognises universities committed to continually improving the mental health and well-being of students and staff.
The well-being of students is central to UEL’s Vision 2028 which identifies "health gain as a pre-condition of learning gain". UEL offers a range of services to support students' mental and physical health, including free gym memberships, and mental health support, counselling or Cognitive Behaviour Therapy.
Outreach
Dr Patricia Smith, senior lecturer in allied and public health in the School of Health, Sport and Bioscience, leads an annual community diabetes conference from UEL. In 2023, the conference drew connections between social care, health care and community support, and integrating different approaches to meet the needs of people living with diabetes. High levels of deprivation in the London Borough of Newham, where UEL is located, lead to multiple health inequalities, including limited access to affordable, healthy and fresh food. These issues were discussed in the conference which also offered various workshops, including qigong and breathing techniques, beneficial as adjunct treatments for individuals with diabetes. Public Health students who participated in a volunteering project at Reids, a community pharmacy, also presented their research findings to the conference audience.
Teaching
UEL’s School of Health, Sport and Bioscience is a leader in providing hands-on, experience-led teaching across multiple disciplines in Biological and Chemical Sciences, Healthcare and Sports. Many courses boast strong links with prestigious industry partners including West Ham United and Great Ormond Street Hospital, along with excellent collaborations across primary and social care with Barts NHS Health Trust; Barking, Havering and Redbridge NHS Trust; and North East London Healthcare Trust. In 2023, UEL had 1,075 graduates from health-based courses.