Question 1

1. We formed a group of stakeholders to co-design and implement the project

Accepted Answer

In total, more than 60 stakeholders contributed to the development of the maps through the following process:

We recruited 53 people who were working to reduce inequalities from gambling and alcohol harms in England. These stakeholders worked in national and local government, and in the community and voluntary sectors, in different geographical regions of England. The stakeholders worked alongside our multidisciplinary research team, which comprised researchers with expertise in alcohol policy, gambling policy, food policy, and community empowerment. We aimed to create a collaborative learning environment for the group. We called this group the National Learning Partnership (NLP).

We ran a suite of activities with the stakeholder partnership including one-to-one meetings and workshops. Through these activities the stakeholder partnership:

shaped the focus of the project on gambling and alcohol 
supported a review of the literature
identified two locations for ‘field sites’ (Derby and Swindon)
designed mapping workshops (as a data generation method).

Question 2

2. We worked with two contrasting local authority field sites

Accepted Answer

Two local authority areas (‘field sites’) were involved in the development of the maps - Derby and Swindon. These two sites had different:

geographic locations
population demographics
levels of inequality
political and social histories
priorities for public health work.

Question 3

3. We conducted preparatory work at each local authority field site

Accepted Answer

In each field site we conducted interviews with people working in roles related to health, the economy and/or the night-time economy. This included the police, local government workers, health workers and local business owners. We also looked at a selection of policy documents about the night-time economy written by local councils and the police. Data from these documents and interviews improved the researchers’ understanding of the local context (e.g. types of gambling and alcohol venues) and helped to establish the scope for the maps (e.g. local government boundaries).

Question 4

4. We held mapping workshops to produce local maps for each local authority field site

Accepted Answer

We held face-to-face workshops with 10-12 participants in each of our field sites. Participants included those involved in licensing, planning, health, policing, and the community and voluntary sectors. One resident from each field site also took part in the workshops.

During the workshops participants were asked to complete the following activities:

On separate post-it notes, write down responses to the question ‘What is happening in your town’s/city's night-time economy to influence worse health in some places?’. Participants were instructed to create statements to specify who is doing what in the night-time economy (e.g. police concentrating resources in the city centre). 
Categorise the statements you have written down according to McCartney’s power framework. Researchers explained each source of power in McCartney’s framework and participants were asked to categorise their statements accordingly.
Read and review each others’ statements. This was guided by questions including: Which things are missing? Which things might you re-label or re-categorise? Which things are irrelevant to Derby/Swindon?.
As a group, move statements around and draw lines between statements that you think are connected.
As a group, add, remove and rename statements and their connections.

Question 5

5. We used the information we had collected from the mapping workshops to develop the local maps

Accepted Answer

We used the information gathered from the workshops in each field site to further develop the maps. We:

reworded some statements
merged some statements
added connections between statements.

We retained much of the language used by participants so that the maps reflected local perspectives.

We then grouped the statements into themes, which we described as ‘spaces’  in which power was used in the night-time economy (in accordance with McCartney’s power framework).

Question 6

6. We asked stakeholders to help us refine the maps

Accepted Answer

We emailed the maps to our stakeholder partnership and workshop participants and we asked for their feedback.

We also ran a series of workshops with the original workshop participants to:

help them access and understand the maps
discuss how the maps might be used in practice
get feedback on how we present the maps on a website 
discuss how we could trial the maps with residents and/or their colleagues.

Further information about the development of the map can be found in our paper (in review).

Night-Time Economy Systems Maps

Mapping the night-time economy at a local level to reduce unequal harms

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