Abstract

Health inequalities and offending are issues that
have raised considerable interest fmm policy
makers, practitioners and the research
communi~ as they seek to understand the
causes and the potential solutions to their
redress. A research 'gap' nevertheless exists in
that whilst successive reports have identified
vulnerable groups who are most likely to offend
and have 'poor' health outcomes, there is limited
'field' research amongst these groups
traditionally considered 'hard to reach'. As.this
paper explores in 2003 the Community
Operational Research Unit (CORUj was invited
to evaluate a Healthy Living Centre (HLC)
within Lincolnshire Probation and this provided
an exceptional opportunity to examine the
problems through a sustained 'engaged' research
project. What became evident as the HLC and
the research emerged were the challenges and
rewards of community operational research as
much as the issues rhat were intensively
explored.