How do social enterprises impact upon health and wellbeing? Some lessons from CommonHealth

Considering that new thinking was required to address long-standing and ever-deepening health inequalities in Scotland, we explored the potential of social enterprises to address the factors in the social environment that we know favour or harm health: the so-called ‘social determinants of health.’ In this chapter, we outline the key findings of a major five-year programme of research (2014–2019) undertaken in Scotland. Working with academic and practitioner partners, we sought to conceptualise and improve knowledge of the health and wellbeing impacts of social enterprises in various contexts and working with different beneficiary groups. We provide an overview of each of the component projects of CommonHealth and their key findings and implications. In our view, and reflecting the nature of social enterprise, research frameworks are required to account not only for the contexts in which they operate but also the consistent outcomes which emerge from such contexts and thus reflect the pervasiveness of social enterprise as a driver of wellbeing.