Dear All,

Thank you to all those who have been able to participate in the two consortium meetings last week. Both have been extremely helpful in getting to the next step of development of the proposal. Based on the inputs received last week, I have developed two “intervention packages”. You may find descriptions of those packages attached to this message, and in the shared Box folder (sub-folder “Interventions”).

In order to help you follow the logic of those intervention packages, please, note the following points:

1. Based on comments received (no age group should be left out within the range provided by the call), I have collapsed the three originally envisaged transitions into two. The first will cover the age range from 12 to 18 and will be labelled transition from early to late adolescence. Intervention package 1 is designed to help this transition by preventing the formation of unhealthy habits, creating and consolidating healthy habits. Intervention package 2 will do the same in the later age group (19-25) supporting the transition to tertiary education/work/independent living.
2. Different domains in each intervention package reflect the structure I proposed on Friday, with several adaptations and specifications.
3. I am circulating these intervention descriptions as proposals (albeit an advanced one, that I would not expect to change to any large extent at this stage). The design of intervention package 1 is ultimately the responsibility of WP4 (led by NIPH) and its partners, and the design of intervention package 2 is the responsibility of WP5 (leadership yet to be assigned – any volunteers or proposals for additional partners who could do it, please, do come forward).
4. The attached intervention descriptions are key tools to be used when approaching country partners whom we expect to implement interventions. WHAT WILL WE THE ASK NEW PARTNERS IN POTENTIALLY IMPLEMENTING COUNTRIES?

1. What I see as the “ideal” approach here (and I would like to emphasise this is the ideal, but reality may require compromise) is that we include 6 countries implementing interventions in Z-HEALTH, three focusing on the age group 12-18, and three on the age group 19-25. The attached document describing Intervention package 1 currently lists Norway, Slovenia, and possibly Spain (Basque country - TBC) as the three implementing countries. We still need to determine what implementing countries will work on the later age group.
2. It is not expected that a single organisation (e.g. the Public Health Institute) takes care of implementing the entire package. They can work with other partners (locally or from other countries) on components they need support with. We could even envisage that implementing countries may be given the option of dropping one domain from the intervention package, if they really feel it would be difficult to implement in their countries, but this would not be ideal, because the different domains are meant to address different  stages of the habit formation process, as set out in the project’s conceptual framework.
3. The value of implementing and evaluation a whole package of interventions is that this will enable us to assess synergies between components and across NCD areas. There would be easier options, potentially, involving countries picking and choosing from a menu of singe-domain/single-transition intervention options, but I think this would be inferior to the plan I have described before, and would reduce the value of the project.

Apologies that this message is getting long, but I would like to address the issue of responsibilities for individual dimensions in the final part of this email, because  we need those responsible to start shaping up the relevant tasks. The dimensions of each intervention package are listed below, along with the individual actions they involve. I have added the names of those I would expect to take responsibility for each of them. Please, look for your names in the list below and assess whether you agree with the proposed allocation and whether you are prepared to work on designing the relevant actions over the coming week (so that we can review those in the next Consortium meeting on 30^th March).

Intervention package 1

Domain 1. Health and digital literacy.

a.      TUTCH health literacy programme. [The CHOICE Foundation (Sweden) are interested in joining the proposal and can work with the European Medical Students’ Association [suggested by Katja, we can follow up with a direct contact and include them too]

b.      Digital literacy programme. [Marisa Miraldo (Imperial) on mis-information management; volunteers sought in support (Daniel, University of Cologne ? Damon, NYU? Others?)]

Domain 2. Self-management of digital media use. [I would see the design of all three components here to be led by NYU, but others are welcome to support if interested]

Domain 3. Healthy school environments and nudges. [WHO and EuroHealthNet can oversee this domain, specific contributions may be envisaged from Marisa and Daniel, especially on (a) and (b); others?]

Domain 4. Resources and services. [Matey’s team NIJZ, supported by other countries implementing this intervention]

Intervention package 2

Domain 1. Health and digital literacy.

1. Health literacy programme. [Possibly Ane, Irati, Biosistemak]
2. Advanced digital literacy programme. [Marisa, NYU team?]

Domain 2. Device-assisted behavioural monitoring and feedback. [we need volunteers here]

1. Physical activity
2. Sleep [this could be covered by Matej’s team, but also potentially by NIPH?]
3. Eating patterns and diet [This would have to be Imperial]
4. Probably not suitable

Domain 3. Healthy environments and nudges.

1. Food and physical activity environments [Marisa may work on this, but I realise her name is down too many times in this list]
2. Addictive product environments [maybe Daniel, again?]
3. Mental health environment, possibly resurrecting the idea of using the ABC framework. [would EuroHealthNet be interested in covering this?]

I look forward to hearing from you.

Franco