Anna Mankell receives postdoc funding to study community coproduction

During the pandemic, it became clear how areas characterized by a low level of trust in societal actors tend to participate to a lesser extent in health-promoting work such as vaccination and testing. One way for welfare actors to reach residents in these districts is to direct efforts towards the local community and by involving citizens through cooperation with representatives from the local community, so-called community coproduction. In the Swedish welfare society, the local society has not been as defined as in many other countries, as the universalist welfare model has traditionally not given room for such local variations. However, as society today is characterized by increased stratification across districts, it becomes important to pay attention to these variations. This project aims to study how strategies for civic participation aimed at the local community, for example through coproduction, can be designed and used in a Swedish context. The project uses theory of trust to understand the conditions for community coproduction.