Herts AQ CC report Jun25

Community Champions evidence

Clean Air community champions

Community champions evidence

The brief

Working with evidence in Hertfordshire for action

Air quality evidence

The workshop

Credits

Pathways to change

Rapid Response

Further info

In June 2025, Hertfordshire County Council (HCC), KNOW-PH and the Clean Air Programme hosted an evidence and experience workshop to support the co-design of Clean Air community champions in the region. Twenty-five people took part in a day of co-creating the early phases of the work for Hertfordshire.

Setting the scene for Herts, Matt Clark (HCC)

Introduction by Professor Sir Stephen Holgate

Community champions World Cafe

Presentations by air quality leaders

Pathways to change

Pathways to Air Quality Community Champions

Language

Trust

Language

Young people

Local relevance

Outreach

Collaboration

A group exercise to co-create a pathway in Hertfordshire

Air quality

Evidence

Access the evidence

In preparation for the co-creation workshop, KNOW-PH summarised the available evidence on air quality and public health

Community champions evidence

Evidence on community champions - their roles, models, usefulness - was taken from a range of NIHR-funded studies.

A lightening summary of the evidence

Links to the full studies

Community champions World Café

An intro to the World Café

The evidence prompts we used

Evidence on community champions - their roles, models, usefulness - was taken from a range of NIHR-funded studies.

Harvesting the discussion

The discussion

Approaches to engagement

Models & types

Commissioning

Roles & responsibilities

Air Quality is not a stand-alone issue. We can reach people through what matters to them (e.g. health, environment) and what already exists (e.g. Ambassadors, networks).

Roles & responsibilities

• Strong communication skills; not 'preachy', neutral language, an ability to use real-life examples to illustrate an issue.
• People who can engage in regular network meetings and communications with community members.
• Good listening and feedback skills; ensuring the right information gets circulated between decision makers and community members.
• A solid understanding of their communities. This would enable materials and information to be tailored to meet different people's needs.
• Action-oriented. This includes reviewing action regularly to see if/how it is making a difference.

There are many candidates for Clean Air community champion roles. These should sit alongside the roles of health professionals and air quality specialists. One of the evidence prompts identified how healthcare professionals could be well placed to identify people to become community champions. Air quality professionals may also be well placed, although we have to be careful to avoid going to the same people all the time. A further evidence prompt identified that champions need clear role descriptions. For us, these roles included important skills and competencies:

Outreach

• Identify relevant common issue
• Speak in the right language to suit community (trusted source)
• Identify key stakeholders and how to reach them
• Find those already trying to do it - people linking local communities
• How to be visible and who to
• Support those not used to being heard through training
• Look at inclusion health models for outreach
• Get to less heard/visible people
• Work with the VCSE sector and trusted community leaders

For further information on air quality issues and strategy

Royal College of Physicians (2025) A breath of fresh air: responding to the health challenges of modern air pollution, including policy briefing

Clean Air Day, including toolkit for teachers

Contacts Liz Such (KNOW-PH) know-ph@nihr.ac.uk Matt Clark (HCC) matthew.clark@hertfordshire.gov.uk

Developing win-win scenarios

• Provide feedback; two-way conversation with communities
• Focus on networking; develop a directory of local resources; raise awareness of roles and resources
• Frame as an issue affecting everyone; focus on everyone's desire to collaborate to spread the message & share common outcomes
• Rewards: in kind or experience/educational opportunities
• Visibility: Make collaboration desirable & an aspiration
• Compensate volunteer groups' time
• Identify potential collaborators

Engaging young people

• Find the angle that matters to them
• Engage young people through their groups e.g. Scouts, Guides, schools
• Use social media, influencers
• Educate from an early age - carry behaviours throughout life
• Build into work experience/Duke of Edinburgh award
• Explore Family Champions - linked to young people
• Provide rewards and recognition
• Career paths - STEM roles
• School/education AQ Champions

Engagement approaches

Clean Air community champions must be trusted messengers. Approaches to engagement must acknowledge that it is a two-way, dynamic process where champions listen and respond to feedback from the community. Engagement approaches should identify and act on the barriers and facilitators to community engagement, for example:

Barriers

Facilitators

• Trust. This can be built through strong communication, consistent and continuous engagement.
• Technical language. Language and data need to be made accessible.
• Funding. Often temporary/project based.

• VCSE sector. Strong and sophisticated.
• NHS providers and GPs. Close allies.
• School environments. Open and enthusiastic about AQ.
• Grassroots interest and motivation.

The language of and for community champions

• No scapegoating
• Mindful communication
• Visual toolkit?
• Link to real life situations/examples
• Co-designing & testing language for resonance
• Consistency e.g. clean air or healthy lungs or air quality?
• Translating scientific language into everyday language; e.g. NOT using chemical labels
• Finding trusted community members to share the message
• Positive messages
• Tailored language for the audience - many versions and formats
• Incremental changes (language of realistic expectation)
• Correct framing

Both flexibility & structure

Evidence from existing champion evaluations show there is more than one 'type' of champion; thinking 'outside of the box' is needed e.g. community sports leaders, influencers could all be AQ champions. The question of 'who?' is more about sharing overarching principles, values and a common language. This may have to be built in the early phases of a champion programme. Issues to consider when creating champions include building in longevity (of people and the programme), consistency and exploring what air quality issues matter to local people. Leadership of a community champion initiative should draw from existing community leaders who are well networked and trusted figures.

The model of community champion roles should use a blended approach that has local relevance at its centre. A clearly articulated core goal should sit alongside complementary objectives that will benefit different interest groups/populations e.g. children and young people, local business. A champion network should change as the population and the needs of communities change. Diversity within the network will support this flexibility. The model would also include capacity development so that more people in more places can understand different air quality issues.

King's Fund COVID Champions

Southampton CoPACT

Air quality community engagement review

Dementia Champions

Why were Hertfordshire County Council and KNOW-PH working together?

Hertfordshire and KNOW-PH were working together to explore how community champion roles (in this case, Clean Air champions) could make a difference to and improve the lives of local residents. KNOW-PH brought in evidence on models, roles and the value of champions from NIHR studies; Hertfordshire brought together a network of interested people including charities, elected members and local officials. Together, we made sense of the evidence and local knowledge to create a pathway to Clean Air community champions.

Examples of Clean Air Community champions

Examples provided by Global Action Plan (Maddy Dawe); Sandwell Council: Climate Change Champions (Sophie Morris); Asthma & Lung UK (Alev Ozturk); Imperial College London: WellHome project (Diana Varaden).

Access the slides

Access the WellHome recording

Real life accounts

Commissioning

Models and types

Roles and responsibilities

Engagement approaches

Some steps to take for commissioning

Making the case for commissioning Clean Air community champions requires:

• Engaging with the political agenda. Co-benefits and win-wins should be emphasised with decision makers
• Demonstrating value. Being able to show the potential value of community champions will help justify spend from stretched budgets
• Knowing what is already happening in the local area. Mapping existing community champion roles will help develop strategy. Creating a directory of roles may be helpful.

Local relevance - meeting the goal of making AQ issues feel important and relevant for local people

• Local AQ monitoring - in residential areas where people spend 90% of their time
• Hyper-local considerations vs. national frameworks - connecting the two
• Demographics, local geography and topography - address the issue that communities may already think they are doing enough
• Understanding local issues/determinants of health/socio-economic issues/health inequalities
• Make links to national policy

Credits and acknowledgements

This work was funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Public Health Research Programme. Award number NIHR159057. The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NIHR or the Department of Health and Social Care.Many thanks go to Hertfordshire County Council for hosting the event and for the support of the Clean Air Programme. All participants are gratefully acknowledged. Suggested citation: Such, E. Clark, M. Marshall, F. and Tattersall, A. (2025) Clean Air community champions. Working with the evidence in Hertfordshire for action. Available at https://view.genially.com/68595c40c8dfe8efb4e1ef4b. KNOW-PH.

Contacts Liz Such (KNOW-PH) know-ph@nihr.ac.uk Matt Clark (HCC) matthew.clark@hertfordshire.gov.uk

Language for Community Champions to use

• Correct framing
• Incremental changes - slow change, realistic expectations
• Tailored language - many versions and formats
• Positive messages
• Translation - simplify, use visuals, trusted messengers, take scientific/chamical labels out
• Consistency - e.g. clean air, AQ, healthy lungs
• Co-creating and testing language for resonance
• Using real life situations/examples
• Visual toolkit?
• Mindful communication
• No scapegoating

Trust - building, sustaining

• Transparency
• Storytelling - providing real examples
• Honesty - don't push agenda or persuade but inform
• Doesn't need finances to make a change
• Relationship building beyond roles. Common goals and values
• Knowledge - sharing and recognising different knowledges
• Evidence - sharing and translating
• Personal experience - making issues relatable and authentic
• Ongoing communication. Signpost if a time-bound project