Time to change! Using the transition from school to university to promote healthy lifestyle habits in young people

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Eating healthily, exercising, drinking sensibly and not smoking are known to reduce the risk of developing serious diseases and conditions such as cancer, heart and circulatory disease, obesity and type 2 diabetes. However, few young people engage in these health behaviours to a level that reduces their risk of developing such health problems. Unfortunately, the habits acquired in early adulthood can often persist and have a detrimental effect on health in middle and later adulthood. Moreover, some of the risky behaviours displayed by young people, such as binge drinking, can have immediate negative health and social problems, including accidents, injuries, physical violence and sexual risk taking. Consequently, interventions targeted at this age group may be particularly beneficial in producing both short-term and long-term benefits to health. Researchers, practitioners, and policy makers alike seek ways of encouraging young people to adopt healthier lifestyle habits. The current research proposes a new intervention, combining three behaviour change techniques from health psychology, that is delivered during the transition from school to university using the latest digital technologies to produce changes in the health behaviours of young people. The intervention is novel in three ways. (1) The intervention combines three techniques from health psychology to (i) ensure that the health messages are not dismissed without being considered (through a self-affirmation task), (ii) develop health messages that target the most important predictors (e.g., beliefs) of each behaviour (based on a widely-used model of health behaviour, the theory of planned behaviour), and (iii) ensure that people's good intentions are translated into behaviour (through the use of planning tasks). (2) The intervention will be delivered during the transition from school to university (i.e., from one month before to one month after starting university). Many young people make this move each year. Such life transitions are critical (or "teachable") moments to intervene as people's beliefs and behaviour are in a state of flux (and are therefore easier to influence) due to the major changes to their social environments. (3) The latest digital technologies (e.g., internet, smartphones), that are part of students' social worlds, will be used to deliver the intervention. This will ensure that the intervention is interactive and engaging to students. All new students (approximately 4,000) to a large city university will be invited to take part in the research. Half will be allocated to the intervention group and half to a control group. All participants will complete online questionnaires assessing their health beliefs and behaviour one month before starting university as well as one and six months after being at university. We will conduct analyses to see whether those in the intervention group adopt more health behaviours (e.g., eat more fruit and vegetables, exercise more, drink less, smoke less) as a result of the intervention. If successful the project will enhance our knowledge of how to promote healthy lifestyle habits in young people. It will therefore create a lasting legacy in terms of best practices to help students develop healthy lifestyle habits when they start university and the technological means to deliver the intervention to all new students in the future.