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(Denmark)

Innovative health promotion project for obese, inactive men with little or no education at workplaces in the Municipality of Guldborgsund, Denmark

Project Summary

The project focuses on a workplace where the workers are mainly men with little or no education. This target group has a high level absence due to illness. There is a high level of obesity among the workers and many are inactive and smoke. The project aims to change the men’s health behaviour through promoting healthy food, “quit smoking”- activities and increased level of physical activity. The project involves a wider consortium of partnerships: the workplace, employers, employees, fast food producers and the providers of physical activities and sport in the local community.

Furthermore, the project involves a partnership with the local Vocational School. It is managed, monitored and developed by a multi-professional group of health consultants from the municipal of Guldborgsund.

The methods for behaviour change will be will be developed and adjusted according to wishes expressed by the men in qualitative research at the formation of the project.

Project Aims

Improve health behaviour among obese men with little or no education. This will be achieved through introducing the participants to a healthier lifestyle through addressing several areas - namely nutrition, diet, physical activity and smoking cessation courses.

The are also the following aims for different target groups:

Workers: The project aims to change the behaviour of men with little or no education who are working in shifts as factory workers or as taxi drivers.
Fast Food providers: To change the range of food choices offered by fast food providers so that they provide healthier meals
Workplaces: The workplace (Hardi - 585 employees) need to make sure that their employees have access to physical activities and fresh, healthy food 24-hours a day.
Municipal of Guldborgsund: develop (methods) healthier practices that can be implemented in other private and public workplaces in the future.

Objectives

Individual: Change the individual behaviour:

From no physical activity to more physical activity.
From eating foods with a high content of fat and sugar to eating more health promoting foods such as whole-wheat bread, vegetables and fruit.
From smoking to non-smoking or smoking less.

The intermediate indicators that will be used to evaluate this are employees who:

participate in the physical test at start/end
participate in focus group interviews
commit themselves to start physical activities
stop smoking
change their inactive lifestyle to an active lifestyle

Employers and workplaces:
The aim is for employers to ensure that workers have access to physical activities and fresh healthy food 24- hour a day, and to provide quit-smoking activities.

Local community:
To improve the local supply of healthy foods to men, who depend on buying food at the roadside or at work.

Why is this innovative?

This project was deemed to be innovative for the following reasons:

It uses a ‘public-private’ partnership approach and develops partnerships between professionals who have not previously worked together.
It uses a ‘bottom-up’ approach, building the intervention on the identification of the target group’s needs.
It involves engagement of the wider community - and not just the target group - in order to ensure a more long-term impact.

Why is this relevant to the social determinants of health?

The project focuses on the workplace as a determinant of health - improving working conditions and using the workplace as a channel to promote health.
The target audience are those with low levels of education. The project will attempt to overcome the consequences of this determinant by providing interventions to promote better health.
It involves the wider community to attempt to create an environment induce to healthier behaviours.

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