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The co-creation of a lifestyle health behaviour intervention in desk-based remote workers

Funder: UK Research and InnovationProject code: MR/Z503629/1
Funded under: MRC Funder Contribution: 154,465 GBP

The co-creation of a lifestyle health behaviour intervention in desk-based remote workers

Description

This project will develop an intervention to enhance the health-related lifestyle behaviours of remote workers. Since the Covid-19 pandemic there has been a rise in home workers in the UK. Between January and February 2023, 40% of the UK working population reported working from home at least once in the last seven days. While working remotely provides some benefits (e.g., better work-life balance, reduced commute time) it can result in unhealthy lifestyle behaviours. Unhealthy lifestyle behaviours associated with remote working include reduced physical activity, prolonged sitting, snacking more frequently. Work from our research group with UK remote workers has revealed that workers are less active and sit more when working from home versus working in an office, with 60% of participants reporting sitting for longer since working at home. These behaviours are linked to an increased risk of weight gain, long-term health conditions (e.g., diabetes, cancer), muscle pains (e.g., back pain, neck pain) and mental health and wellbeing disturbances. Since the pandemic, Macmillan are one of many organisations who have implemented a permanent remote working policy for their cancer support contact centre team. This desk-based team offer support regarding a cancer diagnosis over the phone. Since implementing home working, a wellbeing assessment at Macmillan revealed that a high percentage of employees reported not moving much during the working day, raising concerns over their current and longer-term physical and mental wellbeing. We will work with Macmillan to develop an intervention to increase movement and reduce sitting time within this essential, but highly sedentary and at-risk, workforce. The intervention will be developed in partnership with Macmillan employees and senior management, potential intervention components (based on the findings of this work) may include online educational and motivational resources, targeting the individual, organisational, and policy levels. Intervention development will be guided by psychological theories that help change behaviour. We will create a public engagement group, which will consist of key stakeholders (e.g., managers, HR staff, employees) to provide their opinions throughout the project to enhance likelihood of intervention acceptability and success. The project will consist of four stages: 1) The health-related lifestyle behaviours (e.g., physical activity, sitting time, dietary intake) of remote Macmillan workers will be monitored via tracking devices and questionnaires. These findings will help identify if there are certain times of the day or patterns in behaviour where support is particularly required. 2) Interviews with Macmillan contact centre staff will explore their experiences of remote working, the impact on physical and mental health and health-related lifestyle behaviours, challenges when working remotely, and ways to overcome these challenges. 3) Co-creation workshops will be conducted with employees, managers, and HR staff, during which scenarios will be presented based on the findings of stages 1 and 2 and solutions discussed. 4) An investigation into whether it is feasible to implement and evaluate the intervention developed in stage 3. Feasibility will be based on factors such as participant recruitment and whether people engage with the intervention and complete the proposed evaluation measures. We will assess whether the intervention shows the potential for promoting movement and reducing sitting in this workforce. If this is the case, we will conduct a future study to examine the effectiveness of our intervention within a larger group (including different organisations) of employees working from home.

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