Physical activity, social connectedness and healthy ageing: intervention development

背景：体力活动和社会关系支持健康老龄化，已被老年人、照顾者、医疗保健提供者以及苏格兰和英国政府确定为优先事项。低水平的身体活动和社会孤立是生活在服务不足社区的老年人中的一个特别问题。体育活动有助于将人们联系在一起，来自朋友、家人和其他人的支持可以帮助人们开始和保持体育活动。因此，找到新的方法来增加体力活动并结合社会关系，可能会增加老年人长期改变行为和改善健康状况的机会。目的：与中老年(55岁以上)和其他利益攸关方合作，共同设计一项干预行动计划，支持苏格兰两个社区的老年人更加活跃，但关键是将其与增加社会联系的战略结合起来。我们的做法：我们将与社区和利益攸关方合作，包括目标年龄范围内的人、政策制定者、卫生保健从业者、当地社区和第三部门组织，就不同因素如何结合起来影响老年人的行为达成共识。然后，我们将共同设计干预措施，以改变行为。干预措施可能包括新的服务或产品，或工作或组合现有服务的新方式。研究计划：我们的干预发展研究将建立在我们研究团队目前正在进行的其他工作的基础上。这项工作以社区参与和关系建设为基础，并在我们的两个社区内广泛地探索身体活动和社会联系(例如，通过探索身体活动和社会联系的影响因素，使用在苏格兰和英国范围内收集的现有数据)。在这些社区中，我们目前正在探索老年人的社交网络(例如，他们与谁联系，联系什么，在哪里)，支持身体活动和社会联系的组织之间的本地合作，以及老年人通过采访的生活经历(探索他们随着时间的推移的身体活动和社会联系，包括他们居住的地方和重大生活事件是如何影响这一点的)。因此，我们有社区内的参与和地方一级的数据，以带到这个由PHIND资助的项目中。作为这项由PHIND资助的研究的一部分，我们将在当地社区内与老年人和其他利益攸关方合作，确定和设计干预措施，以支持社会关系和增加体力活动。他们将被邀请参加三个讲习班，在此期间，他们将审查现有的干预措施，并将这些初步想法与正在进行的各种工作(如上所述)的结果一起使用，以确定和制定在他们居住的地区增加身体活动和社会关系的想法。我们还将考虑已经发表的文献(通过称为快速审查的过程)，以确定研讨会小组可能借鉴的潜在干预措施。在系列研讨会结束后，我们将促进工作组进一步完善研讨会上优先考虑的干预想法。我们还将与每个领域的个人进行跟进，收集他们对拟议干预措施及其潜在影响的意见。我们将与老年人和其他利益相关者进行广泛沟通，建立一个合作者网络，与我们在这个项目和其他项目上合作。我们将制定计划，将成功的干预措施推广到其他社区，最终目的是让老年人更长时间地保持健康和独立。

Background: Physical activity and social connections support healthy ageing and have been identified as priorities by older people, carers, health-care providers, and the Scottish and UK government. Low levels of physical activity and social isolation are a particular problem among older people living in underserved communities. Physical activity lends itself to connecting people, and support from friends, family and others can help people start and maintain physical activity. Therefore, finding new ways to increase physical activity in combination with social connections may increase the chances of long-term changes in behaviour and better health among older people. Aim: To work alongside mid-to-older aged people (55+) and other stakeholders to co-design an action plan of interventions that support older people in two communities in Scotland to be more active, but crucially to combine it with strategies to increase social connections. Our approach: We will work with communities and stakeholders, including people in the target age range, policymakers, health-care practitioners, local community and third sector organisations, to develop a shared understanding of how different factors combine to influence older people's behaviours. We will then co-design interventions to change behaviour. Interventions may include new services or products, or new ways of working or combining existing services. Research plan: Our intervention development research will build upon other work currently being done by our research team. This work is underpinned by community engagement and relationship building, and explores physical activity and social connectedness both broadly (e.g. by exploring influential factors for physical activity and social connectedness, using existing data collected in Scotland-specific and UK-wide surveys), and within our two communities. Within these communities, we are currently exploring older people's social networks (e.g., who they connect with, for what, and where), local collaboration between organisations that support physical activity and social connectedness, and the lived experiences of older people through interviews (exploring their physical activity and social connectedness over time, including how this is shaped by the place they live and major life events). As such, we have engagement within the communities and local-level data to bring to this PHIND-funded project. As part of this PHIND-funded research, we will work within the local communities, and alongside older people and other stakeholders, to identify and design interventions to support social connections and increase physical activity. They will be invited to three workshops during which they will review existing interventions and use these initial ideas alongside findings from the various pieces of ongoing work (as mentioned above), to identify and develop ideas for increasing physical activity and social connections in the areas where they live. We will also consider literature that has already been published (through a process called a rapid review) to identify potential interventions that the workshop groups may draw upon. After the workshop series, we will facilitate working groups to further refine the intervention ideas prioritised at the workshops. We will also follow-up with individuals in each area to gather their views on the suggested intervention and its potential effects. We will communicate widely with older people and other stakeholders to develop a network of collaborators to work with us on this project and others. We will develop plans for rolling-out successful interventions to other communities with the ultimate aim that older people maintain their health and independence for longer.