This study seeks to establish whether there is a perceived link between people’s financial lives (including the use of microcredit initiatives) and their health (focusing on the progression of long-term conditions) and the mediating mechanisms that might facilitate this association. The project takes a mixed method approach using financial diaries, in-depth interviews and Q methodology.  

Aims:

• To better understand how low-income individuals, particularly those with long-term conditions, manage their finances.
• To assess the specific financial issues that they encounter and the strategies they use to ameliorate them, including the role of microfinance, and how these strategies link to their health.
• To explore the subjective views of low-income individuals and expert stakeholders on the role of different types of fair credit and advice services in enhancing health and wellbeing, relative to other types of public health initiatives. ‌

Publications

• Biosca, O., McHugh, N., Ibrahim, F., Baker, R., Laxton, T., & Donaldson, C. (2020). Walking a Tightrope: Using Financial Diaries to Investigate Day-to-Day Financial Decisions and the Social Safety Net of the Financially Excluded. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 689(1), 46–64. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716220921154
• McHugh N, Baker R, Biosca O, Ibrahim F, Donaldson C (2019). Who knows best? A Q methodology study to explore perspectives of professional stakeholders and community participants on health in low-income communities BMC Health Services Research 19, 35 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-019-3884-9
• McHugh N, Biosca O, Donaldson C. From wealth to health: evaluating microfinance as a complex intervention. Evaluation 2017; 23(2):209-225.

Project Lead: Dr Olga Biosca

Project Team: Dr Neil McHugh, Professor Cam Donaldson, Professor Rachel Baker, Professor Antony Morgan, Dr Gregory White, Marta Mojarrieta, Dr Ahalya Bala, Enrico Bellazzecca

Sustainable Development Goals