In September 2018 the All Ireland Health Inclusion Forum was launched. Bringing together people with lived experience of social exclusion, front-line health and social care workers, academics, planners and policy-makers. We are committed to addressing the health challenges of social exclusion.
The forum has four areas of focus:- 1. advocacy, 2. a support network for people working with and or living with social exclusion, 3. education for health and social care practitioners working in social exclusion and 4. advancing and developing research capacity. The forum has met twice with 50-100 attendees at each meeting including clinicians, academics, NGO workers, people with lived experience of social exclusion and representatives from the HSE Social Inclusion Office. At the second meeting subgroups for each area were formed. As convenors of the research subgroup we agreed to create a platform where people from different backgrounds can discuss what questions need to be answered in the area of health inclusion and how they can be answered.
Our research prioritisation workshop aims to bring together a diverse group of people currently involved in research in the area of inclusion health. During the workshop they will map out existing research activity and use this as a basis to identify gaps and research priorities. At the end of the day a research agenda for Inclusion Health in Ireland will be agreed. This will be shared with relevant groups to support streamlined and collaborative efforts to address these research priorities.
