Engaging with marginalized communities: the experiences of London health trainers

Health trainers represent a new occupational role within the NHS which has been developing since 2006, when the first 'early adopter' sites were funded by the Department of Health. Health trainers are 'lay' people recruited to engage 'harder-to-reach' people from their communities, offering one-to-one support to enable them to make the healthy lifestyle changes of their choice. The aim of this study was to explore the experiences and approaches adopted by health trainers in engaging with marginalized communities.

This paper describes an exploratory study using in-depth semi-structured interviews with 10 currently employed health trainers with diverse backgrounds, forms of employment and interpretation of role, drawn from seven London primary care trusts (PCTs) or boroughs.

The study found tensions between the lay identity of health trainers and their adoption of a formalized role. Health trainers emphasized their similarities but underestimated their often significant differences to their communities. Health trainers based in community or voluntary groups found engagement easier than those based in PCTs, and saw engagement as an end in itself, through its creation of opportunities for health.

There remains a lack of clarity about the role of the health trainer. Lay workers are not necessarily part of the marginalized communities they are expected to engage, while their ability to do so is compromised by the professional culture of the NHS and its approach to community engagement. Health trainers based in the community or voluntary sector appear to offer greater potential for engaging communities and providing those communities with practical opportunities for health gain.