Cargando…

What have we learned about COVID-19 volunteering in the UK? A rapid review of the literature

BACKGROUND: Community engagement and volunteering are essential for the public response to COVID-19. Since March 2020 a large number of people in the UK have been regularly doing unpaid activities to benefit others besides their close relatives. Although most mutual aid groups emerged from local nei...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Mao, Guanlan, Fernandes-Jesus, Maria, Ntontis, Evangelos, Drury, John
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8318044/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34320922
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-021-11390-8
_version_ 1783730174590713856
author Mao, Guanlan
Fernandes-Jesus, Maria
Ntontis, Evangelos
Drury, John
author_facet Mao, Guanlan
Fernandes-Jesus, Maria
Ntontis, Evangelos
Drury, John
author_sort Mao, Guanlan
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Community engagement and volunteering are essential for the public response to COVID-19. Since March 2020 a large number of people in the UK have been regularly doing unpaid activities to benefit others besides their close relatives. Although most mutual aid groups emerged from local neighbourhoods and communities, official public institutions also fostered community volunteering, namely through the community champions scheme. By considering a broad definition of COVID-19 volunteering, this article describes a systematic review of the literature focused on one broad question: What have we learned about COVID-19 volunteering both at the UK national level and the more local community level? METHODS: A rapid review of the literature in peer-reviewed databases and grey literature was applied in our search, following the PRISMA principles. The search was conducted from 10 to 16 of October 2020, and sources were included on the basis of having been published between January and October 2020, focusing on COVID-19 and addressing community groups, volunteering groups, volunteers, or community champions in the UK. RESULTS: After initial screening, a total of 40 relevant sources were identified. From these, 27 were considered eligible. Findings suggest that food shopping and emotional support were the most common activities, but there were diverse models of organisation and coordination in COVID-19 volunteering. Additionally, community support groups seem to be adjusting their activities and scope of action to current needs and challenges. Volunteers were mostly women, middle-class, highly educated, and working-age people. Social networks and connections, local knowledge, and social trust were key dimensions associated with community organising and volunteering. Furthermore, despite the efforts of a few official public institutions and councils, there has been limited community engagement and collaboration with volunteering groups and other community-based organisations. CONCLUSIONS: We identified important factors for fostering community engagement and COVID-19 volunteering as well as gaps in the current literature. We suggest that future research should be directed towards deepening knowledge on sustaining community engagement, collaboration and community participation over time, during and beyond this pandemic.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-8318044
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2021
publisher BioMed Central
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-83180442021-07-29 What have we learned about COVID-19 volunteering in the UK? A rapid review of the literature Mao, Guanlan Fernandes-Jesus, Maria Ntontis, Evangelos Drury, John BMC Public Health Research Article BACKGROUND: Community engagement and volunteering are essential for the public response to COVID-19. Since March 2020 a large number of people in the UK have been regularly doing unpaid activities to benefit others besides their close relatives. Although most mutual aid groups emerged from local neighbourhoods and communities, official public institutions also fostered community volunteering, namely through the community champions scheme. By considering a broad definition of COVID-19 volunteering, this article describes a systematic review of the literature focused on one broad question: What have we learned about COVID-19 volunteering both at the UK national level and the more local community level? METHODS: A rapid review of the literature in peer-reviewed databases and grey literature was applied in our search, following the PRISMA principles. The search was conducted from 10 to 16 of October 2020, and sources were included on the basis of having been published between January and October 2020, focusing on COVID-19 and addressing community groups, volunteering groups, volunteers, or community champions in the UK. RESULTS: After initial screening, a total of 40 relevant sources were identified. From these, 27 were considered eligible. Findings suggest that food shopping and emotional support were the most common activities, but there were diverse models of organisation and coordination in COVID-19 volunteering. Additionally, community support groups seem to be adjusting their activities and scope of action to current needs and challenges. Volunteers were mostly women, middle-class, highly educated, and working-age people. Social networks and connections, local knowledge, and social trust were key dimensions associated with community organising and volunteering. Furthermore, despite the efforts of a few official public institutions and councils, there has been limited community engagement and collaboration with volunteering groups and other community-based organisations. CONCLUSIONS: We identified important factors for fostering community engagement and COVID-19 volunteering as well as gaps in the current literature. We suggest that future research should be directed towards deepening knowledge on sustaining community engagement, collaboration and community participation over time, during and beyond this pandemic. BioMed Central 2021-07-28 /pmc/articles/PMC8318044/ /pubmed/34320922 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-021-11390-8 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research Article
Mao, Guanlan
Fernandes-Jesus, Maria
Ntontis, Evangelos
Drury, John
What have we learned about COVID-19 volunteering in the UK? A rapid review of the literature
title What have we learned about COVID-19 volunteering in the UK? A rapid review of the literature
title_full What have we learned about COVID-19 volunteering in the UK? A rapid review of the literature
title_fullStr What have we learned about COVID-19 volunteering in the UK? A rapid review of the literature
title_full_unstemmed What have we learned about COVID-19 volunteering in the UK? A rapid review of the literature
title_short What have we learned about COVID-19 volunteering in the UK? A rapid review of the literature
title_sort what have we learned about covid-19 volunteering in the uk? a rapid review of the literature
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8318044/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34320922
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-021-11390-8
work_keys_str_mv AT maoguanlan whathavewelearnedaboutcovid19volunteeringintheukarapidreviewoftheliterature
AT fernandesjesusmaria whathavewelearnedaboutcovid19volunteeringintheukarapidreviewoftheliterature
AT ntontisevangelos whathavewelearnedaboutcovid19volunteeringintheukarapidreviewoftheliterature
AT druryjohn whathavewelearnedaboutcovid19volunteeringintheukarapidreviewoftheliterature