LARIA Autumn Webinar Series 2026: Book Now!
LARIA Autumn Webinar Series: Registration now open
Tickets are free of charge for LARIA Members (Full Individual, Additional Corporate, Corporate and Full Corporate Members). For Non Members and LARIA Associate Members, sign up to membership today to gain access to the webinars. For more information on the different memberships and benefits available, see here: LARIA Membership benefits
Webinar 1 — Local Insight, Community Data & Neighbourhood-Level Understanding
Monday 5 October 2026, 13:00 – 14:30 BST
Session 1: 1.00pm-1.30pm
Turning Data into Action: Community Insight Profiles for Local Impact
This session showcases how Community Insight Profiles and an interactive dashboard are transforming the way we understand and respond to local needs. National strategies often set the direction, but they can miss the nuances that define individual communities. Our work bridges this gap by using localised research and data to create practical insights that shape priorities and deliver targeted interventions.
The Community Insight Profiles programme brings a deeper understanding of the factors influencing health and wellbeing in Oxfordshire’s most disadvantaged areas. The community voices in the profiles bring local data to life, along with mapping community assets, identifying challenges and opportunities, and setting out recommendations for action. These profiles are not just descriptive; they include tailored action plans designed to respond to the priorities identified by local people. Community Health Development Officers and grant schemes are helping to implement the recommendations and we are working with the University of Oxford to assess their community impact.
The interactive dashboard builds on this by offering a dynamic platform where users can visualise trends, compare neighbourhoods, and drill down into specific indicators—making complex data practical and usable.
In this session, we will share the journey of developing these tools, including the methodologies, stakeholder engagement, and lessons learned along the way. We will also present practical examples of how the Community Insight Profiles have influenced local action, from health improvement initiatives to community projects, as well as the scalable findings from the programme evaluation.
Participants will explore the dashboard, engage in discussions about innovative approaches to local data analysis, and consider how similar tools can be adapted to their own contexts. This session offers practical insights into using evidence as the foundation for meaningful, sustainable change.
Reece Remedios, Kate Austin & Fiona Ruck, Oxfordshire County Council
Session 2: 1.30pm-2.00pm
Understanding and modelling loneliness among older adults at the neighbourhood level in England
Loneliness and social isolation have been recognised as critical health concerns by the World Health Organisation (WHO). In 2023, the WHO launched a Commission to help tackle social (dis)connection and in June 2025 published its first report. The report outlines the impact chronic loneliness and social isolation can have on human health, including on older population groups, with conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, depression and anxiety regularly referred to as implications, plus increased stoke risk and potential for early death. Research also suggests that loneliness is one of several lifestyle factors associated with dementia onset.
This session will present a prototype composite index and dashboard which seek to quantify, model and map loneliness risk amongst older adults at the small-area (neighbourhood) level, incorporating all of England. The index, known as the Loneliness Risk Composite Index (LRCI), fuses a series of known determinants of loneliness and infers the level of risk per neighbourhood unit. The tool is designed to aid the targeting of resources and interventions designed to tackle loneliness.
More specifically, this session will discuss the difference between loneliness and social isolation, their associations with health among older populations, and the risk factors (including modifiable risk factors) which are deemed to increase the risk of loneliness. The prototype composite index / dashboard will also be presented and demonstrated.
Dr Luke Burns, University of Leeds
Session 3: 2.00pm-2.30pm
Evaluating place-based and person-centred interventions – Balancing number crunching with local peoples’ experiences
The Horden Together Partnership is a place-based and person-centred intervention designed to improve the lives of residents in Horden, a former coal mining village in County Durham. It is currently being evaluated by the PHIRST Elevate research team based at the University of Edinburgh (more info here). Estimated completion is April 2026.
The evaluation has drawn on various data sources, many of them quantitative in nature. However, we recognise that people are not numbers. How do you make sure that the “human element” of the intervention is not lost through the evaluation, whilst maintaining objectivity and rigour?
Learning will be based around a case study of the evaluation. This session will explore how bringing together data from different local sources can help us tell the story of an intervention while keeping people at the heart of it. The evaluation method used machine learning as the technique to create “personas” by combining quantitative data sets. This helped us identify patterns of multiple needs without focusing on a single individual—a crucial approach in a small community like Horden.
The evaluation has also placed importance on gathering local “data” from a “public involvement group” made up of 12 Horden residents. This group has helped guide the evaluation by providing context and insights, commenting on emerging findings and will support knowledge mobilisation.
Julie Englund & Sarah Janac, Durham County Council & University of Edinburgh
Webinar 2 — Analytical Innovation, Automation & Insight-Driven Service Delivery
Thursday 8 October 2026, 10:30 – 11:30 BST
Session 1: 10.30am – 11.00am
From Analytical Priorities to Organisational Value: Reflections on HDRC Newcastle’s Collaborative Data Projects
This session will provide an honest and practical overview of how HDRC Newcastle works with council directorates to identify, prioritise and develop analytical projects. Drawing on two collaborations with Housing and Communities, the session will explore the project journey from early scoping and engagement at strategic, managerial and operational levels through to analysis, prototype development and the translation of learning into service and organisational improvement.
The session will share our practical approaches to collaborative workshops, project prioritisation and the development of realistic data projects with a focus on health inequalities. It will highlight both successes and challenges, as well as the importance of recognising and building upon the value generated throughout the project lifecycle.
The case studies will illustrate how data from different systems can be brought together to develop a clearer understanding of local need. We will summarise the analytical methods and tools used, alongside the ethical, data quality and operational considerations encountered.
We will also reflect openly on the challenges that can prevent analytical projects from progressing as originally planned. A central theme will be the importance of recognising and capturing value throughout the project lifecycle. The session will consider how individual projects can contribute to longer-term culture change, build analytical capability and create the conditions for future work. We will also share practical ways in which project teams can “help their future selves” by improving documentation, data definitions, governance and reusable analytical processes as part of every collaboration.
We will also reflect openly on the factors that can prevent analytical projects from progressing as originally planned. The session will consider how projects can nevertheless generate wider organisational value, including improved data quality and standards, stronger relationships between analytical and service teams, increased analytical capability and more confident use of evidence in decision-making. We will also share practical ways in which analysts and researchers can “help their future selves” by improving documentation, data definitions, governance and reusable analytical processes through each collaboration.
Throughout the session, delegates will be invited to reflect on how they scope and prioritise analytical projects, maintain engagement across different organisational levels, overcome bottlenecks and demonstrate value beyond the delivery of a final product. The session will conclude with practical lessons for developing sustainable, insight-driven working across local government.
Ruth Boldon & Lee Burns, Newcastle City Council
Session 2: 11.00am – 11.30am
Improving school attendance in Newcastle: understanding the local challenge through mixed-methods research
This session will present findings and reflections from a mixed-methods research project undertaken by Newcastle City Councils Health Determinants Research Collaboration in collaboration with Children and Families directorate.
The research combined statistical analysis of attendance of pupils in Newcastle upon-Tyne to identify factors associated with attendance and inform the sampling design for qualitative analysis. Qualitative research captured perspectives from children and young people, parents, school staff, council attendance officers and wider partners from health, social care and voluntary and community organisations.
The session will focus on the research findings, how we are disseminating the research findings with various stakeholders including children and young people and reflections on conducting research projects within a local authority setting.
What the webinar will cover
During the proposed 30-minute session, the presenters will:
• introduce the scale and significance of school absence in Newcastle;
• explain how quantitative and qualitative evidence were brought together;
• share the principal statistical findings and lived-experience themes;
• highlight practical recommendations for schools, families, local authorities and wider partners.
The session will conclude by inviting delegates to consider how local authorities can combine administrative data with the voices of children, families and practitioners to develop more informed, proportionate and collaborative responses to persistent absence. Key areas for discussion will include early identification, data linkage, multi-agency working, the role of schools as community hubs and how local evidence can be translated into service improvement.
Dr Grace Gardner & Dr Ruth Boldon, Newcastle HDRC
Webinar 3 — Cross-Sector Collaboration, Health Equity & System-Wide Approaches
Wednesday 14 October 2026, 10:30 – 12:00 BST
Session 1: 10.30am – 11.00am
Using Data to build cross sector relationships and shared vision
Since 2022, Centre for Thriving Place (CTP) has worked with three district councils in the Mid-Essex region on a long-term approach to cross-sector collaboration around public health, housing and economy. Initiated by the desire to bring a data-led, evidence-based approach to collaboration during the establishment of the Integrated Care System, this work shows how drawing together and understanding datasets can be a starting point to build practical collaborations, and innovative programmes that tackle silos.
Beginning with a series of workshops with the Mid Essex Integrated Care Alliance, CTP used the Thriving Places dataset as a starting point for discussions about not just a more holistic picture of wellbeing in the region, but also about drivers of wellbeing intersect with each other. These discussions were augmented by qualitative interviews with people working across the system to understand where there was good join-up and where there were problematic gaps in relationships and communication between teams, departments and organisations.
This generated a bespoke indicator framework for the Alliance, containing data on policy areas that intersect in people’s lives (for example health and housing) but about which most organisations in the public health, NHS, local authority and VCS, do not tend to review data all together in one place – much less collaborate with different parts of the system.
This initial 6 month work, resulted in a follow-on 2 year learning partnership over two years through which the Thriving Places Dataset became integrated across the three district councils’ work including VCSE sector mental health funding, transport inequalities, and joining up retrofit, respiratory health and housing. further ongoing project to better integrate the work of the Public Health and Economic Growth teams at Essex County Council, and to feed into the development of new foundational strategies for the emerging Greater Essex Mayoral Combined Authority.
Adekemi Okmisakin, Centre for Thriving Places and Adrian Coggins & Alexandra Card, Essex County Council
Session 2: 11.00am – 11.30am
Embedding health equity: Tools from the MATCH process
A key initiative of the Population Health Hub is the eMbedding heAlth equiTy in City & Hackney (MATCH) programme. The vision behind the Hub and MATCH is inherently bold: to transition from addressing health inequalities solely through targeted services to embedding health equity as a core function within all partner organisations across the system (applicable in different local contexts).
The MATCH approach is built on a robust evidence-informed process, ensuring solutions are targeted, relevant, and effective. The MATCH approach includes five main steps: bringing the right people together, collating data and insights, establishing conditions for change, prioritising key changes, and implementing, testing, and learning. It is adaptable, flexible and can be applied in tackling a wide range of health inequalities, and importantly can be applied with or without designated funding.
Using a participatory format, the session will share practical tips, insights and uses of the MATCH process to inspire and enable others to adopt it in their work to reduce health inequalities.
Participants will be taken through the five steps and supported to use the MATCH process to successfully tackle deep-rooted challenges, providing real-world examples of impact from the first two years of MATCH – from taking action on food poverty, poor cardiovascular outcomes, inequalities in maternity outcomes, mental health of people seeking asylum, and inequalities in healthy weight outcomes through partnership work.
Attendees will leave equipped with the inspiration and practical tools needed to adapt and implement this flexible framework, ensuring health equity is no longer an optional project but a core, built-in function of their day-to-day operations and service design.
Jessica Veltman and Missy Matz, Population Health Hub, City & Hackney Public Health Team
Session 3: 11.30am – 12.00pm (provisional)
TBC
TBC
CACI
