Background: The Centre for Population Health (CPH) in the NSW Ministry of Health is the lead agency responsible for the implementation and evaluation of the NSW Healthy Eating and Active Living (HEAL) strategy 2022-2032. The strategy aims to reduce the impact of obesity, keep people healthy, and tackle health inequality in our communities. Given emerging evidence of the cost effectiveness of virtual health models for HEAL behaviour change1,2,3, the CPH has renewed its focus on adapting two of its existing mainstream programs (Get Healthy Service [GHS] and Go for Fun [G4F]) to reduce health inequities and better meet the needs of priority populations at scale.
Methods: CPH recently partnered with the Prevention Research Centre at the University of Sydney to conduct secondary analyses of program evaluation data to determine the effectiveness of both the GHS (December 2017 and May 2023, n=18,133) and G4F online (January 2018 to May 2022, n= 1,283) program compared to the standard G4F program.
Results: Significant improvements were noted across the GHS overall for HEAL behaviour change and anthropometric measures. GHS participants most likely to complete the program were men, people aged 50+ years, those from the most disadvantaged areas and non-Aboriginal people. Compared to the standard face to face program, Go4Fun Online participants showed significantly larger improvements in all health behaviours and anthropometric measures but reached fewer children from disadvantaged areas and non-English speaking backgrounds.
Conclusion: These findings demonstrate that virtual health interventions can improve HEAL behaviours in children and adults. However, implementing strategies to increase reach and participation of all NSW children and adults in these services will be important to reduce health inequities.