Racialised and gendered violence is in critical need of being recognised as a public health crisis.
The UK’s 2024 racist riots revealed the devastating consequences of unchecked racialised and gendered violence. These events were not isolated, but the result of longstanding inequalities, misinformation, and systemic failures. Our report, ‘Understanding the Racist Riots of 2024 and What Should Be Done’ (2025), identified the urgent need for a public health approach that specifically addresses the racialised and gendered nature of serious violence.
We have received funding from People’s Health Trust to create a UK public health approach to violence prevention that foregrounds racial and gender equity. It will be co-produced with Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities in London and Manchester.
Who the project is for
The project is aimed at Black, Asian and minoritised ethnic communities with lived experience of racialised/and or gendered violence in Ealing, Lambeth and Manchester. It is also aimed at wider violence prevention systems – from local authorities and health and social services to community and voluntary organisations, violence reduction units, and health policy advocates.
Proposed approaches
The project will consist of two phases of participatory action research: the development of the model, followed by pilot testing in Ealing, Lambeth and Manchester. We will recruit 24 participants with lived experience of racialised and/or gendered violence through purposive sampling.
Creative and participatory methods will be employed across both phases, including place-based mapping, body mapping and photo elicitation. We will also employ learning reviews and feedback loops across both phases to record how interpretations, priorities and the model change throughout the work. Analysis will be co-produced with lived-experience participants and informed by evidence from community and system contributors.
Intended outcomes and key project objectives
By June 2027, the project will have:
- Co-produced a model embedding racial and gender equity within the public health approach to violence prevention
- Tested the model in three diverse localities, generating practice evidence and validated implementation tools
- Produced sector-ready guidance (Implementation Guide and toolkit) for local and national systems
- Established a coalition of partners and expert advisors to sustain the work beyond Year 1
Wider implications and potential impact
The project has the potential to strengthen local understanding of violence, supporting more effective, community-led violence prevention approaches as well as recognition of the intersectional nature of violence.
Underpinning this work is the ecological model, which provides a public health approach to understanding and addressing violence across individual, relationship, community and structural levels. This project has the potential to support greater recognition of the ecological model as an effective public health approach in addressing the impact of violence of Black, Asian and minoritised ethnic communities.
Get involved: Join our co-production group
We are recruiting 24 paid participants across Manchester, Lambeth and Ealing to participate in this project and co-produce a new public health model for preventing racialised and gendered violence.
We are looking for people from Black, Asian and minoritised ethnic backgrounds with lived experience of racist and/or gendered violence who want to share their experiences and help shape long-term solutions.
Participants will take part in a series of in-person co-production workshops and online learning review sessions between the two phases of the project, and will receive up to £600 in total (£150 for each workshop and learning review session attended) as a thank-you payment.
If you, or someone in your network, would like to contribute to this important work, we encourage you to find out more and apply. For further information, please contact Raheema Khan, Policy Officer.
