Healthy Living in Scotland's Communities: A Co-Designed Intervention That Worked

Living healthy can be tough, especially when you're dealing with low income, job insecurity, long anti-social hours, and limited local services. These challenges make it harder for people in disadvantaged areas to stay on track with their health. Researchers in Forth Valley, Scotland, decided to take a different approach. They worked alongside two local communities to design and run a program called Enjoy Life Locally (ELLY), aimed at helping residents maintain a healthy weight and overall wellbeing.

The program included free soup served twice a week through cafés, deliveries, or pickups. Participants also received a loyalty card that tracked their involvement in community activities, groups, and clubs. After attending at least nine community assets over twelve weeks, they earned a £25 shopping card. Other elements of the program included goal setting, educational resources, and tools for participants to monitor their own weight and wellbeing.

Volunteers ran the entire program from September through November 2023, reaching 75 residents across both communities. At the end of the twelve weeks, researchers conducted interviews with ten participants from each community to understand whether the program was feasible and how it actually worked. They used a method called framework analysis to make sense of the interview data.

The results showed that ELLY was well accepted and practical to implement. Interviews revealed several important pathways through which the program helped participants. People reported positive changes in their daily behaviour, stronger social connections within their communities, better eating habits, and even measurable improvements in their own reported health. Participants also gained new skills and knowledge along the way. Overall, the study confirmed that taking part in ELLY was linked to meaningful health outcomes, adding solid evidence to what we know about community-based health programs and underscoring how valuable it is to involve the people who live in those communities from the very beginning.