ActEarly

A City Collaboratory approach to early promotion of good health and wellbeing

UKPRP award £6.5 million for 5 years, with additional in-kind investment from the consortium’s partners

Image provided by Born in Bradford

Our research

ActEarly set out to improve the life chances of children by focusing on improving the environments that influence their health.

Three main themes were examined: (i) on healthy places, considering the environments in which children live and attend school, and examining how these could increase physical activity, reduce obesity, and improve mental wellbeing, for example; (ii) healthy learning, focussing on how learning is linked to place and community interactions that facilitate learning; and (iii) healthy livelihoods, considering what is good for children’s learning and social engagement. In addition, two cross-cutting themes focused on Play and Physical Activity, and Food and Healthy Weight.

The research built on the applicants’ work in Bradford and include Tower Hamlets in London, two ethnically diverse areas of the UK with high levels of child poverty. The two sites provided the opportunity for testing replicability of research approaches and generalisability of interventions across all our themes.

The consortium’s overall approach was to evaluate the cumulative effect of multiple system-wide interventions on improving child health. Co-production of interventions with users and local communities was informed by evidence synthesis and we focused on citizen science methods and asset-based community development approaches. Policy simulation modelling was used to see the long-term impacts of interventions. From the start, we conducted a meta-evaluation of our consortium and work which has highlighted our reach and engagement with the child health system.

Mapping ActEarly: Using a child health map to evaluate a City Collaboratory programme on early promotion of good health and wellbeing | PLOS One

Our achievements

ActEarly’s legacy has been to drive sustainable research and investment across areas of the consortium where we feel we can make the most difference. Key achievements over the last year include:

1. A core ActEarly project to evaluate Bradford’s Clean Air Zone is now reporting early evidence of both improved air quality and cost benefits to the NHS Impact of an urban city-wide Bradford clean air plan on health service use and nitrogen dioxide 24 months after implementation: An interrupted time series analysis – ScienceDirect
2. The ActEarly Healthy Places team received £7.5 million to deliver the UKRI Healthy Urban Places Population Health Cluster which will build on and sustain the highly successful work the team undertook within ActEarly GtR
3. Our Food and Healthy Weight theme has continued its much needed work around easier and fairer access to healthy food. For example the Fair Food Futures project and further evidence to support the benefits and challenges of free school meals Food Improvement Goals in Schools (FIGS I): A qualitative evaluation of a whole-school approach to healthy food provision in primary schools | Research Square.
4. Work developed by our Healthy Livelihoods theme in Bradford to explore co-location of benefits advice is now being expanded and tested in Tower Hamlets through the NIHR funded Healthier Wealthier Families in East London study Healthier Wealthier Families in East London | UCL Institute of Education

For further details see the ActEarly website.

Co-directors

Consortium members

ActEarly’s membership includes:

• co-investigators with varied expertise, including in simulation modelling, informatics, and social and housing policy.
• users from Bradford Metropolitan District Council, the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, the Local Government Association (LGA), Public Health England (PHE) and Sport England.
• charities and Non-Governmental Organisations such as Bromley by Bow Centre and Nesta.