CO-creating commuNity iNterventions on diEt and physical aCtivity to increase health equiTy in chIldren and adOlesceNts
Acronym : CONNECTION
Call : HealthEquity 2023
Topic
This project aims to design, implement and evaluate social and physical environmental community interventions that promote healthier diets and physical activity, targeting children and adolescents in disadvantaged socioeconomic circumstances, with the ultimate goal of increasing health equity. A co-creation approach will be followed as the targeted populations and different stakeholders will be actively involved in designing, implementing and evaluating such actions for healthier and sustainable environments.
The project will include these co-created interventions to address dietary inequalities among the most vulnerable children and adolescents, replicated in different European contexts, in order to identify novel approaches for the implementation of a social provision of food for families in vulnerable contexts, simultaneously promoting social human rights, the reduction of food waste, and increasing the availability and consumption of healthier foods. Co-creating interventions will also target a healthy physical activity environment (e.g., attractive playgrounds, green routes to school). Youth-led participatory action research principles will be applied in order to develop actions aligned with population target needs and interests, and to empower individuals for better health decisions.
In addition, data from cohort studies will provide opportunities for assessing trajectories of behaviours and their longitudinal association with health outcomes, understanding particularly the role of social circumstances. These results will inform the impact assessment models of interventions on healthier behaviours and on health equity.
Finally, the project plans to develop policy tools and implementation guidance to support stakeholders and policy makers for future planning towards better health equity. The ultimate goal of our community-based co-creation models is to break cycles of health inequalities, leaving no one behind.
- Coordinator:
Carla LOPES, INSTITUTO DE SAÚDE PÚBLICA DA UNIVERSIDADE DO PORTO, Porto, Portugal
- Partners:
- Carl LACHAT, Universiteit Gent (UGent), Gent, Belgium
- Costanza PIZZI, Università di Torino, Torino, Italy
- Mai Chin A PAW, stichting VUmc, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
- Bent MIKKELSEN, University of Copenhagen, Frederiksberg, Denmark
- Sandra ANDRUSAITYTE, Vytautas Magnus University (VMU), Kaunas, Lithuania
- Inga ELKSNE, Riga Stradinš University, Riga, Latvia