Self-management of Multiple Health Conditions in People Experiencing Socioeconomic Deprivation

Overview - The project explores how socioeconomic status impacts on self-management of long-term conditions (multi-morbidity) and how self-management can be improved. The study comprises of two systematic reviews and a large qualitative study.

Funding and timeline - The project is funded for 18 months by the NIHR School for Primary Care Research (SPCR) and commenced on 1^st November 2021.

Problem - Long-term health conditions are one of the biggest challenges to health care with 70% of all health and social care funding going to people with long-term health conditions, including 50% of primary care appointments. People from the lowest socioeconomic status groups have a 60% higher prevalence of having a long-term health condition, a 30% increase in severity of the condition and are twice as likely to have multiple long-term conditions compared with those from the higher socioeconomic groups. There is evidence that self-management interventions have reduced effectiveness in people from low socioeconomic groups and the reasons why this is, or how it can be addressed, has seldom been explored.