TY - JOUR
T1 - Social innovation: worklessness, welfare and well-being
AU - Roy, Michael
AU - McHugh, Neil Anthony
AU - Hill O'Connor, Clementine
N1 - Add print details when available. Publisher version of article requires 12 month embargo from publisher, going by Sherpa/R 9-5-14. ET
PY - 2014
Y1 - 2014
N2 - The UK Government has recently implemented large-scale public-sector funding cuts and substantial welfare reform. Groups within civil society are being encouraged to fill gaps in service provision, and 'social innovation' has been championed as a means of addressing social exclusion, such as that caused by worklessness, a major impediment to citizens being able to access money, power and resources, which are key social determinants of health. The aim of this article is to make the case for innovative 'upstream' approaches to addressing health inequalities, and we discuss three prominent social innovations gaining traction: microcredit for enterprise; social enterprise in the form of Work Integration Social Enterprises (WISEs); and Self Reliant Groups (SRGs). We find that while certain social innovations may have the potential to address health inequalities, large-scale research programmes that will yield the quality and range of empirical evidence to demonstrate impact, and, in particular, an understanding of the causal pathways and mechanisms of action, simply do not yet exist. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014.
AB - The UK Government has recently implemented large-scale public-sector funding cuts and substantial welfare reform. Groups within civil society are being encouraged to fill gaps in service provision, and 'social innovation' has been championed as a means of addressing social exclusion, such as that caused by worklessness, a major impediment to citizens being able to access money, power and resources, which are key social determinants of health. The aim of this article is to make the case for innovative 'upstream' approaches to addressing health inequalities, and we discuss three prominent social innovations gaining traction: microcredit for enterprise; social enterprise in the form of Work Integration Social Enterprises (WISEs); and Self Reliant Groups (SRGs). We find that while certain social innovations may have the potential to address health inequalities, large-scale research programmes that will yield the quality and range of empirical evidence to demonstrate impact, and, in particular, an understanding of the causal pathways and mechanisms of action, simply do not yet exist. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014.
KW - social innovation
KW - self-reliance groups
KW - microcredit
KW - public health
U2 - 10.1017/S1474746414000104
DO - 10.1017/S1474746414000104
M3 - Article
VL - 13
SP - 457
EP - 467
JO - Social Policy and Society
JF - Social Policy and Society
SN - 1474-7464
IS - 3
ER -