Renzella Jessica, Agbebiyi Adeola, Nayyar Ruby, Malik Saira, Ahmed Emily, Harding Seeromanie, Scarborough Peter, Bhatnagar Prachi
Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
Newham Public Health, London Borough of Newham, London, UK.
BMC Public Health. 2025 Aug 4;25(1):2645. doi: 10.1186/s12889-025-23909-4.
Healthy diet is an essential component of good health, yet many areas of the UK struggle with high burdens of diet-related diseases. Efforts to address diet-related diseases in the London Borough of Newham have had limited success so far, possibly due to the lack of engagement with Newham's distinct local context. Newham is ethnically diverse and within the 20% most deprived areas of England. To engage residents in public health action and encourage approaches that tackle the underlying causes of poor-quality diets, systems approaches were used to co-design healthy diet interventions with residents in Newham. The specific aims of the project described in this paper were to understand residents' perceptions of the determinants of unhealthy diets and identify their desired areas for action.
Twelve online Group Model Building workshops were conducted with 33 Newham residents from six Community Neighbourhoods. Participants reflected the ethnic and religious diversity of Newham's population. The first workshop explored residents' views of what is causing people to have unhealthy diets. Participants identified areas for action and brainstormed solutions to improve diets in the second workshop.
Each workshop produced a neighbourhood-specific systems map of 'what's causing people in Newham to have unhealthy diets'. Residents identified multiple and connected political and economic, physical environment, social environment, and individual level causes of unhealthy diets. Suggested action included increasing food and nutrition education, addressing the unhealthy influence of social media, alleviating poverty and improving food business practices.
Online Group Model Building activities represent a comprehensive yet low cost and low burden method for engaging communities in identifying areas for action to improve diets. The systems maps created in this project with Newham residents have been used to co-develop context-specific food interventions with Newham Council that focus on improving the food environment.
健康饮食是良好健康的重要组成部分，但英国许多地区都在与饮食相关疾病的高负担作斗争。到目前为止，在纽汉姆伦敦自治市为解决饮食相关疾病所做的努力取得的成功有限，这可能是由于缺乏与纽汉姆独特的当地背景的互动。纽汉姆种族多样，位于英格兰最贫困的20%地区之内。为了让居民参与公共卫生行动，并鼓励采取措施解决低质量饮食的根本原因，采用了系统方法与纽汉姆的居民共同设计健康饮食干预措施。本文所述项目的具体目标是了解居民对不健康饮食决定因素的看法，并确定他们期望采取行动的领域。
与来自六个社区邻里的33名纽汉姆居民进行了12次在线群体建模研讨会。参与者反映了纽汉姆人口的种族和宗教多样性。第一次研讨会探讨了居民对导致人们饮食不健康的原因的看法。参与者在第二次研讨会上确定了行动领域，并集思广益提出改善饮食的解决方案。
每次研讨会都生成了一份特定社区的系统图，展示了“导致纽汉姆居民饮食不健康的原因”。居民们确定了不健康饮食在政治经济、物理环境、社会环境和个人层面的多种相互关联的原因。建议的行动包括增加食品和营养教育、应对社交媒体的不良影响、缓解贫困以及改善食品商业行为。
在线群体建模活动是一种全面但低成本、低负担的方法，可让社区参与确定改善饮食的行动领域。本项目与纽汉姆居民共同创建的系统图已被用于与纽汉姆委员会共同开发针对具体情况的食品干预措施，重点是改善食品环境。
