Eat, play, learn well-a novel approach to co-production and analysis grid for environments linked to obesity to engage local communities in a child healthy weight action plan

Objectives: To describe the process of combining Analysis Grid for Environments Linked to Obesity (ANGELO) with community engagement, qualitative and co-production methods to promote local strategies around child healthy weight (CHW) and to highlight steps taken to engage local people in developing a community CHW action plan around two school communities in Dundee, Scotland.

Study design: The Eat, Play, Learn Well (Learn Well) approach applied an action-oriented research approach, using qualitative methods.

Methods: Focus group discussions (FGDs), a co-production approach, and ANGELO were linked by applying a novel three-step process. FGDs were recorded by scribe and following face-to-face interview's key themes were identified using a novel, predefined five-step process, and ANGELO grids were populated. Prioritization events allowed local people to rank most important health statements, with community conversations offering further insights to help create a local CHW action plan.

Results: Three FGDs were conducted with parents (n = 24) and two with workers (n = 15). Eighty-seven attended a prioritization event at school B (41 adults), 59 attended at school A (35 adults), where each school community chose its top four priorities from 11 health statements developed. Two further community conversations then took place and led to the creation of a CHW action plan with five overarching themes.

Conclusions: The Learn Well test approach helped gain important insights into local environments linked to obesity and production of a pragmatic, step-by-step process suitable for real-life public health practice that can enable local people to identify key early intervention and prevention priorities, in a tangible way.