Periodic Reporting for period 3 - INHERIT (INter-sectoral Health Environment Research for InnovaTions)
Berichtszeitraum: 2019-01-01 bis 2019-12-31
Our current lifestyles, based on ‘take-make-consume-dispose’ models of economic growth, damage the environment and threaten our health. Those in lower socio-economic groups are at higher risk of being exposed to environmental threats and unhealthy living conditions, compounding disadvantage and increasing social, health and environmental inequalities. While awareness of, and willingness to modify lifestyles and behaviours is growing, achieving change is very difficult, as the contexts and environments in which we live are powerful influencers of habit development and maintenance.
INHERIT’s (Jan 2016 to Dec 2019) main aim was to identify initiatives that encourage lifestyle and behaviour change, to support the transition to more sustainable societies and to determine what is needed to multiply and scale these. It did this by investigating promising inter-sectoral policies, interventions and innovations that promote the health and well-being of European citizens across the social gradient while also addressing environmental stressors and health inequalities ('triple-win'). The initiatives fell into the areas of living (green space, energy efficient housing), moving (active travel) and consuming (food and food waste).
INHERIT’s (Jan 2016 to Dec 2019) main aim was to identify initiatives that encourage lifestyle and behaviour change, to support the transition to more sustainable societies and to determine what is needed to multiply and scale these. It did this by investigating promising inter-sectoral policies, interventions and innovations that promote the health and well-being of European citizens across the social gradient while also addressing environmental stressors and health inequalities ('triple-win'). The initiatives fell into the areas of living (green space, energy efficient housing), moving (active travel) and consuming (food and food waste).
INHERIT partners began by developing a Baseline review and developed an INHERIT Conceptual Framework to understand the links between the areas addressed by INHERIT, our behaviours, and the transition to sustainable and fair societies. Partners then carried out ‘visioning, scenario-planning and back-casting’ exercises, resulting in the development of four positive future scenarios of what Europe could look like in 2040. The scenarios were discussed in workshops with citizens. Partners also implemented a Household Survey, reaching around 10000 individuals.
In parallel, partners identified over 100 promising ‘triple-win’ practices included in a Database of Promising Practices available on the INHERIT website. Fifteen of these were selected to undergo further evaluation as ‘INHERIT case studies’ and were subsequently implemented through close collaboration between the relevant work-strand leads, the responsible INHERIT partners and the local implementors. A report on the implementation process of all 15 case studies was published. Partners also carried out qualitative, mixed quantitative/qualitative and cost-benefit evaluations on respectively 12, 9 and 4 case studies. Work on the case studies culminated in a synthesis report drawing on learnings from all evaluations to set out “elements of good practice” in creating triple-wins for health, equity and environmental sustainability.
Work on the policy side began with the Policy Road Map, which notably drew on a workshop and further consultations with experts in the context of the future scenario planning. Four policy round tables were organized in the final year to present INHERIT’s work and obtain further input from policy makers and representatives of leading businesses. All INHERIT’s outcomes were used to develop three Policy Briefs focusing on issues at the heart of the INHERIT project (health equity, behaviour change, and integrated governance) as well as an online Policy Toolkit. An Online Learning Module on the outcomes and the lessons learned was also developed in the final year. It is freely available on Moodle.
Throughout the project, all partners engaged in active dissemination of the above results. Crucial to a broad dissemination was the INHERIT website, which was regularly updated and brought together the key elements of the project, including interactive information on the INHERIT case studies. All ‘public’ reports were formatted and made available on the INHERIT website. Traditional and social media were actively used throughout the project, as partners developed and disseminated newsletters, press releases, tweets, etc., and results were picked up on by the media and important communications channels, such as the EU Health Newsletter.
The Consortium organised three high-level events: a half-day pre-conference of the European Public Health Conference (Stockholm, November 2017); the ‘INHERIT Your Future Forum’ that focused on promising practices (Vienna, November 2018); a concluding conference in Brussels in December 2019. A number of smaller events were also organized by individual partners. Throughout the four years, partners also presented on INHERIT at conferences, roundtables, workshops and meetings across Europe. Last but not least, partners published scientific articles on key project outcomes, including but not exclusively in the INHERIT Special Issue of the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (IJERPH), co-edited by 2 INHERIT partners and an advisory board member. Datasets from the Household Survey, five out of the nine quantitative case studies and the four cost-benefits studies will be made openly available via Zenodo.org in January 2022.
In parallel, partners identified over 100 promising ‘triple-win’ practices included in a Database of Promising Practices available on the INHERIT website. Fifteen of these were selected to undergo further evaluation as ‘INHERIT case studies’ and were subsequently implemented through close collaboration between the relevant work-strand leads, the responsible INHERIT partners and the local implementors. A report on the implementation process of all 15 case studies was published. Partners also carried out qualitative, mixed quantitative/qualitative and cost-benefit evaluations on respectively 12, 9 and 4 case studies. Work on the case studies culminated in a synthesis report drawing on learnings from all evaluations to set out “elements of good practice” in creating triple-wins for health, equity and environmental sustainability.
Work on the policy side began with the Policy Road Map, which notably drew on a workshop and further consultations with experts in the context of the future scenario planning. Four policy round tables were organized in the final year to present INHERIT’s work and obtain further input from policy makers and representatives of leading businesses. All INHERIT’s outcomes were used to develop three Policy Briefs focusing on issues at the heart of the INHERIT project (health equity, behaviour change, and integrated governance) as well as an online Policy Toolkit. An Online Learning Module on the outcomes and the lessons learned was also developed in the final year. It is freely available on Moodle.
Throughout the project, all partners engaged in active dissemination of the above results. Crucial to a broad dissemination was the INHERIT website, which was regularly updated and brought together the key elements of the project, including interactive information on the INHERIT case studies. All ‘public’ reports were formatted and made available on the INHERIT website. Traditional and social media were actively used throughout the project, as partners developed and disseminated newsletters, press releases, tweets, etc., and results were picked up on by the media and important communications channels, such as the EU Health Newsletter.
The Consortium organised three high-level events: a half-day pre-conference of the European Public Health Conference (Stockholm, November 2017); the ‘INHERIT Your Future Forum’ that focused on promising practices (Vienna, November 2018); a concluding conference in Brussels in December 2019. A number of smaller events were also organized by individual partners. Throughout the four years, partners also presented on INHERIT at conferences, roundtables, workshops and meetings across Europe. Last but not least, partners published scientific articles on key project outcomes, including but not exclusively in the INHERIT Special Issue of the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (IJERPH), co-edited by 2 INHERIT partners and an advisory board member. Datasets from the Household Survey, five out of the nine quantitative case studies and the four cost-benefits studies will be made openly available via Zenodo.org in January 2022.
INHERIT has improved awareness that a healthy existence is not possible on an unhealthy planet, and that it is crucial to strengthen collaboration between sectors, to transition to ways of living, moving and consuming that benefit the environment, health and equity. It has above all contributed insight into how this can be done. INHERIT is the first initiative that has jointly considered concepts of lifestyle and behaviour change and measures that simultaneously improve the environment, health and promote health equity -the INHERIT ‘triple-win’. Well-designed policies and interventions can encourage and enable people to modify their lifestyles and behaviours and affect the drivers of environmental degradation and ill health, in ways that help close rather than exacerbate socio-economic and health inequities. The INHERIT Model, which brings these different concepts together, is a tool now available to a wide range of actors to improve understanding of how they inter-relate and to think through policies and initiatives to ensure they contribute a ‘triple-win’. INHERIT has also broken boundaries by implementing evaluations to assess for multiple ‘triple-win’ outcomes. It has, as a result, also provided new evidence on measures that can simultaneously lead to the INHERIT ‘triple-win’, and improved understanding and awareness of health inequalities.The aim and initial impact has been to encourage a wide range of actors -like policy makers, professionals and students working in a range of sectors and concerned about the environment and health, to apply a ‘triple-win’ lens and to consider what more sustainable futures could look like and how they can work together to achieve them. It has also been to encourage more health professionals to build on INHERIT’s approaches and outcomes to inspire them to also work together to design, implement and evaluate more integrated policies and actions that enable people to transition to more sustainable lifestyles that also lead to a better redistribution of societal resources, to improve the health and well-being of all.