Community intervention strategies to reduce the impact of financial strain and promote financial well-being: a comprehensive rapid review.

Financial well-being describes when people feel able to meet their financial obligations, feel financially secure and are able to make choices that benefit their quality of life. Financial strain occurs when people are unable to pay their bills, feel stressed about money and experience negative impacts on their quality of life and health. In the face of the global economic repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic, community-led approaches are required to address the setting-specific needs of residents and reduce the adverse impacts of widespread financial strain. To encourage evidence-informed best practices, a provincial health authority and community-engaged research centre collaborated to conduct a rapid review. We augmented the rapid review with an environmental scan and interviews. Our data focused on Western Canada and was collected prior to the pandemic (May-September 2019). We identified eight categories of community-led strategies to promote financial well-being: systems navigation and access; financial literacy and skills; emergency financial assistance; asset building; events and attractions; employment and educational support; transportation; and housing. We noted significant gaps in the evidence, including methodological limitations of the included studies (e.g. generalisability, small sample size), a lack of reporting on the mechanisms leading to the outcomes and evaluation of long-term impacts, sparse practice-based data on evaluation methods and outcomes, and limited intervention details in the published literature. Critically, few of the included interventions specifically targeted financial strain and/or well-being. We discuss the implications of these gaps in addition to possibilities and priorities for future research and practice. We also consider the results in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic consequences.

Community-Based Resistance Strategies among a Group of Trans Women in Lima, Peru during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

This study explores the community-based strategies that a group of trans women living in Lima, Peru, employed to resist the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on their wellbeing. Data was collected through participant observation and focus group discussions during the implementation of a social aid campaign targeted to this population and analyzed through reflexive theoretical thematic analysis. Resistance strategies were understood as forms of social capital grounded in relations of support and connectedness. Results underscored the importance of social cohesion to ameliorate increasing levels of precarity, community leaders as key for linking trans women across different networks, and unified efforts of social groups who share values to influence institutional power. The analysis also captured barriers and challenges that could hinder the development and articulation of social capital. Fostering trust relations and community-organization should be fundamental components for advocacy programs that seek to support the trans women community.