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Laria NE October 2018 Event

The third LARIA North East Networking event was well-attended, with 15 attendees and four presenters. Held at Darlington Town Hall (thanks to Zoe Foster and Darlington Borough Council for providing the venue), we enjoyed a mixture of presentations on information management and networking, and the chance to meet other North East researchers.

We first heard from Dr Christopher Parker at Newcastle City Council on the topic “Preventing homelessness in the context of welfare reform: Newcastle upon Tyne’s Homelessness Prevention Trailblazer”. Newcastle is one of only three national early adopters for the Homelessness Prevention Trailblazer, a public service transformation programme focused on preventing homelessness at an earlier stage by working with a wider group of residents at risk to help them before they reach crisis point.

Next, Andrew Billett (Public Health England) gave a talk on “Measuring health inequalities: investigating a rise in early mortality due to heart disease in Teesside”, and how PHE were able to use public health surveillance techniques to reach conclusions, such as learning that the flattening of the trend in the early mortality rate due to chronic heart disease in Middlesbrough since 2010 was caused by an increase in the number of deaths due to chronic ischaemic heart disease.

Following a tea and coffee break, Warren Hatter from With The Grain and Stuart Cuthbertson from Sunderland City Council presented on “Using behavioural insight in local government: lessons from Sunderland”. They discussed how behavioural insights can help public sector organisations reduce demand, improve outcomes and increase resilience, looking at case examples from increasing benefits applications in Sutton, and encouraging the take-up of stop smoking services in pregnancy in Sunderland.

In the final part of the event, we moved onto networking and the “Three things I’m working on…” forms. These aim to capture information three projects each of us is working on, three issues we think will be important in the future, and three things we are interested in learning more about in future. Everyone took the chance to network and discuss these issues with fellow researchers, and the information on the forms will be used to plan future LARIA North East networking events. Finally, Louise Reeve, the LARIA North East Regional Organiser (me!) presented on “What’s happening with LARIA nationally?” This included feedback from the recent LARIA Awayday to plan the future of the organisation, the option for members to host an ONS Census Economic Forum, and feedback from the recent Public Affairs Committee Annual Conference. There was also some cake!

Thanks to everyone who attended for making it such an amazing event. The next one will be in Spring 2019. Watch this space, and contact me if you have any ideas for what you’d like us to cover: louise.reeve@newcastle.gov.uk.

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Attendees from across the North East at the last LARIA NE networking event in Durham.

The latest LARIA networking event for local area and social researchers in the North East will take place on 1 October 2018, 1-4.30pm Darlington Town Hall. We’ll be finding out more about:

• using behavioural insight in local government from With the Grain and Sunderland City Council
• preventing homelessness from Newcastle City Council’s Homelessness Prevention Trailblazer, and
• measuring health inequalities in Teesside from Public Health England.

Come along and network with local area and social researchers in the North East. There will be cake!

We look forward to seeing you – book here: LARIA North East October 2018 or contact the organiser, Louise Reeve, at: louise.reeve@newcastle.gov.uk or ring: 0191 277 7508.

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The video of this talk is now available online. 

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At this meeting it was clear it would be mutually beneficial to strengthen the working relationships between public health intelligence and the wider local authority research and intelligence community, and between local authorities and Public Health England. Effective collaboration and shared learning between intelligence professionals at the local, regional and national level would provide an increasingly important means of sharing learning and creating synergy in our current financial climate.

A small Working Group of LARIA and PHE members was consequently set up to explore and facilitate this work on behalf of Professor Newton and LARIA Council.

During the last year this Working Group has collaborated with a number of partners in order to address and explore a number of crucial key areas to take the LARIA-PHE agenda forward. Its aim was to gain a better understanding of the current scope of public health intelligence, both in Public Health England and within local authorities, to identify emerging opportunities for developing closer relationships, networking and communities of practice, and to explore the potential for shared training and/or other professional development.
Although the Public Health England and LARIA regional organisation does not work on the same boundaries, the Working Group found that Public Health England and LARIA both have contacts at a sub-national level in England (with LARIA also comprising Scotland and Wales). In addition, a considerable amount of joint working already exists between health intelligence professionals, and provides evidence of much commonality between practitioners, particularly around consultation and engagement. A clear appetite for collaboration also exists, particularly around further joint working/networking/training and the sharing of knowledge. LARIA-PHE Collaboration – Activity summary

A number of ‘quick wins’ (such as sharing information through online communities and regional newsletters and updates) have been identified along with a range of other areas in which collaboration could be fostered, including joint training, and work shadowing and exchanges to increase understanding, particularly of specialist skills etc. Based on the findings of our initial activities, a number of potential priority areas going forward were identified. A quick ‘dot vote’ on these identified priorities was undertaken at the recent LARIA Conference in May to offer a quick ‘finger in the air’ test of prevailing LARIA/PHE practitioner attitudes. Each person was given 5 dots to spend on the priorities listed as they so wished. Better opportunities for joint training received the highest number (47) of dot votes. LARIA 2014 Dot vote – Full Document.

Some issues or barriers requiring further thought and/or ‘workarounds’ have also been acknowledged by the Working Group, such as differences in both boundaries and the everyday use of technologies, and a mutual lack of awareness and overall understanding of ‘how it all works now’ as a result of the ‘quiet revolution’ in public health.

Helen Butcher, June 2014
LARIA/PHE Working Group Chair
LARIA Council/South East Chair

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Looking at London and England’s eight Core Cities – Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham and Sheffield – the findings show that the areas of our cities with the poorest health outcomes had the least amount of green space.

The report calls for action from local government, central government and developers in encouraging healthier lifestyles through healthier local environments.

Photo credit: Liverpool waterfront by Declan McAleese

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Food Dudes Health Social Enterprise, partnered with Public Health Walsall MBC and Bangor University

The Food-Dudes Early Years Programme effectively combats obesity and enhances life-long health by improving the eating habits of very young children. It uses the very latest scientific advances in the field of behaviour change. This is a major break-through in approaches to dietary change and the prevention of ill health.

Summary

It is now widely recognised that to prevent obesity and improve children’s health it is important to establish healthy eating habits as early as possible. This is the aim of the newly developed Food Dudes Early-Years Programme, which brings about major increases in 2-4 year olds’ consumption of fruit and vegetables (F&V).

The Programme was developed from a partnership between Food Dudes Health Social Enterprise (FDH), Public Health Walsall MBC, and Bangor University. The Food Dudes Primary-School Programme for 5 to 11 year olds has a strong evidence base and has had international success. It brings about big increases in consumption of F&V, reduces consumption of high-energy dense snacks, and transfers effects to the home and to families. The Early-Years Programme featured here is based on the same principles.

In the Walsall trial, the Food Dudes Early-Years Programme increased consumption of fruit by 55% and vegetables by 129% at 3-month follow-up. The results suggest that an evidence-based behaviour change programme is required to change children’s eating habits.  The Early-Years trial has driven evidence-based decision-making; the Programme will now be implemented in Walsall, Wolverhampton and the Grampian region of Scotland, before wider roll-out across the UK and further afield.

Synopsis

Developing an Innovative Programme. Because 24.1% of children enter primary-school overweight/obese in Walsall (NCMP 2011/12), Public Health Walsall MBC (PHWMBC) is rolling out the Food-Dudes Full Force Primary-School Programme. This evidence-based programme increases fruit and vegetable (F&V) consumption, reduces consumption of high-energy dense snacks, and transfers the effects to the home and families. Based on the international success and evidence for the Primary-School programme, PHWMBC has taken an innovative step and invested in the development of the Food-Dudes Early-Years Programme that can be delivered in any early-years setting.

Partnership Working. The development, evaluation and funding of this new programme has involved partnership working between Food-Dudes Health Social Enterprise (FDH), PHWMBC and Bangor University (BU). Led by FDH, school caterers prepared F&V, nursery-nurses delivered the programme, PHWMBC invested in and supported the project, and FDH and BU recruited staff though research and growth funding and monitored and evaluated the programme.

Objectives. To create an outcomes based, cost-effective, combined video role-modelling and rewards intervention that is effective in increasing the F&V consumption of 2-4 year olds, in both the short- and long-term that can be run by nursery-nurses and rolled-out anywhere in the world. To create a programme that when commissioned on a large-scale creates jobs and supports the reengineering of local retail outlets by creating demand for healthy foods i.e. local F&V as opposed to unhealthy snacks.

Methodology. The Controlled Evaluation Study from October 2012 to March 2013 consisted of 300+ pupils in 6 nurseries in Walsall schools, with random allocation to Food-Dudes or waiting-control conditions. Settings were matched on class sizes, socio-economic-status and geographic location.#

Food-Dudes Early-Years Programme:

Phase-1 (32 days) – Food-Dudes DVD, one pair of target F&V (8 different F&V identified from our pilot research to be less preferred by preschool children including fig, spinach and cabbage) presented each day on a 4-day cycle, passports to healthy eating and small customized tangible prizes to reward consumption.

Phase-2 (indefinite) – Weekly Food-Dudes picnics with new F&V, group contingency rewards and parental involvement.

Control-settings – Received same F&V as intervention nurseries without DVD or rewards.

Measures. Direct visual measurements of children’s F&V consumption at snack-time was taken over 4 periods: Baseline (before the programme started); Mid Phase-1 (after 16 days); End of Phase-1; Follow-up 3 months after end of Phase-1. Consumption was blind-recorded, and dual-coded from photographs, on a 5-point scale from plate residue.

Results. Analysis showed baseline consumption of F&V was matched across both conditions. At 3-month follow-up children at Food-Dudes nurseries ate twice as many vegetables (consumption increased by 129%), and they ate significantly higher quantities of fruit (consumption increased by 55%), compared to control-settings.

Discussion. The results show the power of an early-intervention based on behaviour change principles and how it can transform children’s eating habits. Importantly, providing F&V alone does not make an impact – an evidence-based behaviour change programme must accompany provision.

Impact. This research has led to evidence-based decision-making by public sector bodies in Walsall, Wolverhampton and the Grampian region of Scotland where they are starting the programme in September 2013. This research will provide the platform to showcase the Food-Dudes Early-Years programme worldwide.

• The success of the Food Dudes Early Years Programme shows the effectiveness of behaviour change principles, which have a very general application.
• The psychological principles include role-modelling, rewards and repeated tasting of F&V. Again these drivers of behaviour change have very general applicability.
• The Food Dudes Full Force Primary School Programme for 5 to 11 year olds has over 20 years of evidence and research and has worldwide success and critical acclaim. It has been shown to increase consumption of F&V, reduce consumption of high-energy dense snacks, and to transfer the effects to the home and to families. The Early Years Programme for 2-4 year olds is based on the same principles and components and these initial results suggest that it is at least as effective as the Primary School Programme.
• The Food Dudes Early Years Programme increases consumption of fruit by 55% and vegetables by 129%, and importantly it increases consumption of F&V that are less preferred by 2-4 year olds including watermelon, broccoli, fig, spinach, cabbage and apricot.
• The results critically demonstrate that providing F&V with no accompanying intervention is ineffective at increasing consumption. An evidence-based programme based on behaviour change principles is essential to initiate behaviour change.

There are supporting research data from: (a) an initial small scale nursery pilot study and (b) related studies with older children

The key findings and published papers from this research are provided via the Food Dudes website.  

Photo credit: Food Dudes Health Social Enterprise, partnered with Public Health Walsall MBC and Bangor University winning the 2013 awards.

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