Dear Colleagues,

 

I apologise for the limited communication to the wider consortium since the last meeting. Work has continued through bilateral exchanges, and I am writing with an update on the progress of our proposal. I realise this is a long email containing a lot of information and requests for feedback. I would be grateful if you could read it carefully and provide your inputs in the areas identified below.

 

  1. The next Consortium meeting will be held online. Unfortunately, too few people were able to travel to Oslo to justify an in-person meeting. So, the meeting will now be in two parts:

The third and potentially final meeting of the whole Consortium will be online on 30 March from 14:00-17:00 CET. You should have received a diary invite for all three meetings. If not, please, do not hesitate to let the proposal management team know at the following address: zhealth-mgmt@imperial.ac.uk.

 

  1. All documentation for the proposal is filed on Imperial’s Box system. You should have received an invitation to access the folder. When you accept the invitation, please, click on the option “not part of Imperial.” You should be prompted to set up an account with Box. Once you have done this you should be able to login. If you have any queries or difficulty in accessing the files please contact the management team at the address above.

 

  1. When you access the shared folder (named “Behavioural-Interventions-shared”), one of the sub-folders, named “Application”, contains the Word document “Z-HEALTH proposal_1402” which is an annotated version of the grant application, partially filled in with a revised framework and work package structure. You may also easily access this file from the following link. From now on, this will be the working document in which we will invite each member of the Consortium to add their comments and contributions.

 

  1. The draft proposal includes a proposed work package structure, which is also attached here as a PowerPoint slide. The structure is currently based on the assumption that we will implement two intervention packages (WPs 4 and 5) in the project, reflecting two of the three age transitions outlined on page 8 of the proposal. The idea is that we would focus on school-age children (12-15 and 16-18, respectively), but if you think that we should add a third intervention package covering the third transition (age 19-25), we could do that too. We have not yet tried to allocate responsibilities for individual WPs, but some would seem fairly obvious (e.g. EuroHealthNet is probably well placed to lead WP9; WPs 4, 5 and 6 would need to be led by partners involved in implementing the interventions; WP8 could be led by Imperial or Isinnova; etc.).  Each WP will include several tasks, of course, and we will need to identify task leaders as well. It would be great to receive your comments on the proposed structure, which can still be changed to a large extent, if needed.

 

  1. Interventions. Thank you to those who have already contributed examples of potential interventions. Our current thinking on interventions can be summarised in the following points:

 

    1. We will design two multi-component intervention packages aimed at the age groups 12-15 and 16-18, respectively (a possible third package could be aimed at the group 18-25). Each intervention package will be deployed in at least three countries, with each country possibly deciding what components they are able to implement. We will need more partners to be able to deliver interventions in multiple countries.
    2. Each intervention component will cover a domain (e.g. health literacy; digital media exposure; etc.) and may include multiple actions. WPs 4 and 5 will involve tasks corresponding to the co-creation and planning of different intervention components. Each component will be “evidence-based” (possibly in other settings or age groups) but I would not expect the intervention package as a whole to have been implemented before.
    3. In the interventions based in schools, we should rely on school health services and teachers, and leverage youth co-creation. This will enable us to cover the three key target groups of the call (health professionals, educators, young people).

 

  1. We are still looking for further examples of interventions, consistent with the principles set out in the previous point, to include in our intervention packages. I would be grateful if each partner could provide suggestions of any relevant and age-appropriate interventions. The information we would ideally want to receive is outlined in a questionnaire format in the attached Word document. You don’t need to fill out the entire questionnaire, you may just provide some of the information in an email if you find it easier. We are collecting examples of interventions in a spreadsheet in the shared Box folder, available at this link.

 

  1. As the proposal, WP structure and interventions are gradually shaping up, we need to complete the consortium by adding partners who can cover all the required roles, especially partners who can deliver the interventions in their own countries. We have received a number of suggestions and we are following up on some of those, but please help us identify any further collaborators (national public health agencies, universities, civil society organisations) that you think would be a good fit.

 

  1. Proposals must be submitted by 16 April, so there is no room for delays in the coming weeks and we need everyone’s active collaboration. We have prepared a timetable of remaining activities up to the submission date, which you will also find attached to this message. Please note the deadlines.

 

With many thanks,

 

Franco