Research: Impact of Cost of Living Crisis on Mental Health
“I have thoroughly enjoyed working with the Spark Insights team on this crucial and challenging research on the cost of living crisis. The team are all highly passionate, experienced, knowledgeable and approachable, and I have learned a lot from seeing how they have approached and delivered this work.
Authenticity and compassion sit at the heart of everything they do as an organisation, reflected in their impressive engagement and trust with their communities. I have been thoroughly impressed by the team’s ability to bring their lived experiences of marginalisation into their research work whilst prioritising their wellbeing as researchers. I’d highly recommend working with the Spark Insights team on projects focused on Anti-racism and Inclusion.
The Spark Insight team has inspired me. I’m confident that the research they have delivered for us will be crucial in informing Mind’s organisational cost of living and poverty work”
Overview
In 2023, Spark Insights was commissioned by Mind, the mental health charity, to conduct qualitative research to better understand the impact of the cost of living crisis on mental health.
The research explored the lived experiences of people with mental health problems and those living in poverty before the crisis. The themes explored over the course of research included people’s changing experiences of their mental health, relationships with money, experiences of poverty, and experiences seeking support and navigating mental health services.
The research also determined what people wanted government and charities to be prioritising to ensure people with mental health problems, and those at risk of developing mental health problems, are adequately supported during the cost of living crisis and beyond (financially and in terms of wellbeing).
Mind and Spark Insights Partnership
A key reason that Mind chose to commission this research externally was the need for the research team to have established trust and reach with communities that are disproportionately impacted by the cost of living crisis (for example, those already experiencing poverty and marginalisation prior to the cost of living crisis).
For this research, the key audiences were people from racialised communities (particularly those whose heritage is connected to the global majority), those with experiences of living in poverty, young people, and people facing multiple forms of marginalisation.
Having previously worked together, Mind felt that Spark Insights had excellent reach and engagement with these communities and a level of trust and understanding that would be highly beneficial for generating meaningful and honest conversations through the research fieldwork.
The Research Approach
Human-centred: Spark Insights took a human-centred approach, ensuring that care, integrity and equity were central to the research fieldwork.
End-to-end service: In order to meaningfully explore the impact of the cost of living crisis on people with lived experiences of mental health problems and poverty, Spark Insights designed an end-to-end service. This included:
Engagement with and recruitment of participants for the research
Delivery of the research fieldwork
Development of the research analysis and report
Convening internal stakeholders for interactive learning sessions.
The Impact
Short to medium term impact: The research delivered by the Spark Insights team has provided crucial, up-to-date insights to inform Mind’s cost of living emergency response for winter 2023. The rich insights and strong participant voice in the research, particularly on the experiences of racialised communities, played a key role in increasing knowledge and awareness of the genuine mental and financial impact of the cost of living crisis at an individual and community level. Other key users of the research included Mind’s Strategy and Insight team, Policy and Campaigns team, Information team, and staff across Local Mind networks. The research provided the evidence they needed to make decisions informed by lived experiences and ensure ongoing and future work is evidence-led.
Longer-term impact: The cost of living research insights will be crucial in informing longer-term commitments and developments for Mind’s poverty work. Poverty work is a relatively new area of focus at Mind, and there is a lot of scope to influence the direction this work takes in future, including key audiences, partnerships and programmes. The research delivered by Spark will feed directly into these decisions.
Wider external impact: There are a range of external stakeholders who will be engaged through the work of Mind’s internal teams. Mind will seek to reach and influence government and commissioning bodies to act on the recommendations from the research. Mind will also use the insights from the research when seeking to form new partnerships in the poverty space to increase their reach and impact to support more people experiencing both mental health problems and poverty. Mind will harness the lived experience insights from this research to influence current work, including campaigns on in-work poverty, the benefits system and the government’s support in response to the cost of living crisis.
Client Testimonial
“I have thoroughly enjoyed working with the Spark Insights team on this crucial and challenging research on the cost of living crisis. The team are all highly passionate, experienced, knowledgeable and approachable, and I have learned a lot from seeing how they have approached and delivered this work.
Authenticity and compassion sit at the heart of everything they do as an organisation, reflected in their impressive engagement and trust with their communities. I have been thoroughly impressed by the team’s ability to bring their lived experiences of marginalisation into their research work whilst prioritising their wellbeing as researchers. I’d highly recommend working with the Spark Insights team on projects focused on Anti-racism and Inclusion.
The Spark Insight team has inspired me. I’m confident that the research they have delivered for us will be crucial in informing Mind’s organisational cost of living and poverty work” - Alex Viccars, Research Lead, Mind.