Empowering communities with health promotion labs: result from a CBPR programme in Malmö, Sweden

The study describes findings from a community-based participatory and challenge-driven research programme, that aimed to improve health equity through a health promotion platform in an ethnically diverse low-income neighbourhood of Malmo, Sweden. Local residents, together with lay health promoters living in the area, were actively involved in the planning phase and decided on the structure and content of the programme. Academic, public sector and commercial actors were involved, as well as NGOs. In this study, empowerment was used as a lens to analyse focus group interviews with participants (n=322) in six co-creative health-promoting labs on three occasions in the period 2017-2019. The CBPR interview guide focused on the dimensions of participation, collaboration, and experience of the activities. The CBPR approach driven by community members contributed to empowerment processes within the health promotion labs. Findings indicate that health promotors were able to build trust in social places for integration; participants motivated each other by social support, and that the programme design enabled them to act for community health in a wider circle. To understand the processes of change and empowerment on the community level, the CBPR Health promotion programme should be followed up longitudinally with community participants