ELLY: Enjoy Life LocallY

People living in disadvantaged areas seldom take part in weight loss services. Low income, unemployment, working anti-social hours and stressors like food insecurity make looking after health and well-being challenging. Addressing the link between obesity and inequalities in people’s physical and mental health is a key priority for citizens, the government and for post-Covid recovery.

In partnership with two disadvantaged communities in Forth Valley, we are co-designing a new community-led approach to incentivise, support, and sustain healthy weight and well-being. We are reviewing the current evidence on incentives with monetary value as motivators for healthy weight and are exploring community preferences using a door-to-door citizen survey (online option) and citizen involvement via pop-up cafés and social media to decide what would work best. The co-designed incentive intervention will be tested to see if it is helpful and can be delivered in a larger trial with linkage to future health outcomes and long-term follow-up.

Project aim:

The aim of this research is to co-design and feasibility-test a novel evidence-informed and community-based incentive system to promote healthy weight and well-being.

Project research questions:

RQ1: Developed by a community-based partnership, what kind of evidence and theory-informed incentive intervention to promote healthy weight and well-being for citizens living in disadvantaged communities would be acceptable?

Specifically:

RQ1.1 what is the evidence on community-based interventions including an incentive component for obesity/weight loss and in what ways can this evidence be incorporated into the intervention?

RQ1.2 through AR and informed by this SR evidence, can the community-based partnership successfully design an incentive intervention and protocol to feasibility test?

RQ2: Is it feasible to implement a protocol for a future larger study to test the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of the co-designed healthy weight and wellbeing intervention?

Specifically:

RQ2.1 How acceptable and promising is the intervention in promoting healthy weight and well-being?

RQ2.2 What are the barriers and facilitators to recruitment, retention, engagement, data collection, sustainability, reach and addressing health inequalities?

RQ2.3 How do study findings inform the design of a future large-scale evaluation?

Project lead: Julie Cowie

Project website: https://ellyresearch.stir.ac.uk