Projects

This project is funded by the NIHR National Priority Area Research Consortium for Prevention, including Behavioural Risk Factors

Project title: Workplace health and wellbeing – a mixed-methods evaluation of cross-regional workplace health initiatives including a cluster randomised controlled trial of a behaviour change intervention

Funding total: £ 299,987

Funders and or supporters: NIHR Prevention with Behavioural Risk Factors National Priority Consortium. The project is hosted and led by ARC West Midlands collaborating with ARC Northwest London and ARC North East and North Cumbria.

What does this project aim to achieve?

This project conducts research to understand how to prevent problems with ill health at work.

We have three research questions:

1. What are the mechanisms through which workplace health initiatives promote better health and wellbeing outcomes within a range of contexts and settings? Lead: ARC NENC
2. How can workplace health initiatives help employers support their staff in the sustained adoption of health seeking self-care behaviours? Lead: ARC NWL
3. What is the effectiveness of a mental contrasting goal setting intervention delivered through workplaces in motivating staff to change their health behaviour and wellbeing? Lead: ARC WM

Who is it relevant to and who could it impact?

Employees, employers, human resource staff, communities, local authorities, trade unions, clinicians and commissioners involved in preventing ill health, mental health champions and advocates.

Why is this project important?

It is important that employees of any organisation are well, both physically and mentally. Preventing problems with health and wellbeing at work can mean that employees take fewer days off sick from work, are more productive at work, and are less likely to quit their jobs because they are too sick to go to work.

Project update – June 2023

We have completed our literature reviews and started to collect data.

Next steps  

We will finish collecting and then analyse our data and write up our publications and reports to disseminate with the input of our public contributors.

Research findings/outputs to date

We have published blogs and newsletters, such as the ARC West Midlands news blog , and presented our work, such as at the ARC National Symposium for Inequalities and Prevention. Our trial protocol was accepted for publication on 24.02.23 in the academic journal PloS ONE and will be available online soon.

Project lead: Dr Laura Kudrna ([email protected])

Co-investigators:

• Dr Lena Al-Khudairy, Senior Research Fellow, University of Warwick, ARC WM
• Dr Kelly Ann Schmidtke, Assistant Professor, University of Warwick, ARC WM
• Laura Quinn, Medical Statistician, University of Birmingham, ARC WM
• Prof. Richard Lilford, Professor of Public Health, University of Birmingham, ARC WM
• Paul Bird, Head of Programmes (Engagement), University of Warwick, and Knowledge Mobilisation Lead at WM Academic Health Sciences Network, ARC WM
• Dr Lailah Alidu, Research Associate, University of Birmingham, ARC WM
• James Yates, Research Associate, University of Birmingham, ARC WM
• Prof. Kate Jolly, Professor of Public Health and Primary Care, University of Birmingham, ARC WM
• Dr Ila Bharatan, Research Fellow, Warwick Business School, ARC WM, Implementation co-lead
• Niyah Campbell, Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement Officer, University of Birmingham, ARC WM
• Prof. Graeme Currie, Professor of Public Management, Warwick Business School, ARC WM, Implementation co-lead
• Dr Austen El-Osta, Director of the Self-Care Academic Research Unit (SCARU) & Primary Care Research Manager at the School of Public Health, Imperial College London, ARC NWL
• Dr Dasha Nicholls, Reader in Child Psychiatry, Imperial College London, Honorary Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist, NIHR NW London ARC Theme Lead for Multimorbidity and Mental Health
• Dr Benedict Hayhoe, Clinical Lecturer in Primary Care Imperial College London, NIHR NW London ARC Theme for Multimorbidity and Mental Health
• Dr Kaveh Asanati, Fellow of the Faculty of Occupational Medicine, Consultant Occupational Physician & Honorary Clinical Senior Lecturer at National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London, ARC NWL
• Prof. Azeem Majeed, Professor of Primary Care and Public Health, and Head of the Department of Primary Care & Public Health at Imperial College London
• Immy Webber, Research Officer, Imperial College London
• Aos Alaa, Research Assistant, Imperial College London
• Dr Mackenzie Fong, Fellow in Prevention, Early Intervention and Behaviour Change, Newcastle University, ARC NENC
• Dr Frances Hillier-Brown, Lecturer, Newcastle University, ARC NENC
• Dr Charlotte Rothwell, Research Associate, Newcastle University, ARC NENC
• Prof. Amelia A Lake, Professor of Public Health Nutrition, Teesside University, and Associate Director of Fuse, The Centre for Translational Research in Public Health, ARC NENC
• Dr Claire O’Malley, Research Associate, Teesside University, ARC NENC
• Dr Pat Watson, Research Fellow, Teesside University, ARC NENC

For more detailed information about this project please email [email protected]

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