We’ve won a 2015 Health and Wellbeing Award from the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) for our work in Hertfordshire.
Do Something Different behaviour change programmes developed for Hertfordshire Public Health have won a Health and Wellbeing Award from the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH).
The Award has been given to Do Something Different for “its innovative and creative approach to behaviour change for individuals in Hertfordshire.”
The online project, piloted in 2014, provided individually tailored programmes to nearly 1,000 Hertfordshire residents, helping them to improve healthy living, healthy weight, emotional wellbeing and stress.
Accessible and scalable
In making the award, the RSPH were particularly impressed with the way that the Do Something Different platform takes Public Health out to a wider audience.
The RSPH says:
“The organisation’s digital platform is accessible and scalable with the potential for reaching large groups of people. Its interventions are underpinned by research and good practice in technology.”
The view from the residents
A fraction of the cost of face-to-face
Jim McManus, Director of Public Health in Hertfordshire, is delighted that the Do Something Different approach has been recognised by the RSPH.
Jim McManus says:
“Our online pilot programme with Do Something Different shows that people with long-term conditions move out of clinical levels of depression at a fraction of the cost of face-to-face care.”
Real shifts in behaviour
Research at the end of the pilot, which included almost 1,000 Hertfordshire residents, showed:
- Subjective wellbeing up by 21%
- Anxiety and depression down significantly, with more than 50% of people in the ‘clinical’ category moving to healthier levels
- Physical activity up by 37%
- Alcohol consumption down by 20%
- Fruit and veg consumption up by 29%
- Weight down by an average of 5.8 lbs in six weeks
- 50% of people visited Herts amenities
A growing focus on behaviour change in public health
Achieving and sustaining behaviour change is vital to improving health for every individual. Increasingly health authorities are turning to the behavioural sciences to identify effective and efficient ways to do this, rapidly and at scale. At the same time, ‘digital by default’ – the government’s drive towards online services needs to be met.
Do Something Different now has a range of public health programmes across the the UK and further afield, including DoHealthyCov for Coventry Public Health, and Smoke Free Me, a successful online smoking cessation programme for Brighton and Hove Clinical Commissioning Group.
Professor Karen Pine, founding psychologist at Do Something Different, says:
“Assuming that educating people about their health will result in rational behaviour is flawed. The obesity crisis in the UK is one example of the limitations of information campaigns. It’s not enough to know about 5-a-day. You have to physically change your eating habits. When attempting to understand and resolve the barriers that prevent people achieving better health outcomes it is important to take account of the limitations of the human mind revealed by behavioural science. Do Something Different targets do-ing, and that’s what gets results.”
New programmes for diabetes, smoking cessation, and mental health and abuse
Following the successful pilot, Hertfordshire Public Health has commissioned a number of new programmes to complement the award-winning public programmes from last year.
These include:
- Do Somethi
ng Different for YOUR diabetes – an innovative new programme to help Type 2 diabetes patients to take control of their condition, giving them self-management tools and reducing the burden on local health services. - Love your Bump – a smoking cessation programme for pregnant women, using behavioural techniques to help them to quit now, and for the future.
- Mental health in young people – a schools programme based on our previous successful interventions in Norfolk. This will use SMS text delivery to deliver an online programme and coaching support in the classroom. It will help vulnerable 13 to 19-year olds to break harmful habits and find new ways of fulfilling their potential at school.
- Empowering victims of domestic abuse – to enable safeguarding of children, a programme that will be selectively rolled out in conjunction with Children’s Centres across the county.
Efficient ‘out-of-the-box’ programmes for Public Health
The beauty of Do Something Different’s approach is that everything is taken care of, providing an efficient online solution for all kinds of health and community partners.
Anthony Bullock, Head of Anti-marketing at Do Something Different explains:
“We work with the Public Health team, CCG, health commissioners or clinicians to create the core content. After that, we take care of everything, from the sign up website, to creation of leaflets and posters, online recruitment, campaigns, the lot. There is no technical integration required. Health bodies can have a bespoke online behaviour change programme that targets their specific challenges, up and running in weeks, without any burden on their existing professionals or health services.”
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