Since its publication in June 2017, there has been considerable interest from a range of stakeholders in Everyday Interactions. RSPH and Public Health England (PHE) have now developed a new impact pathway on childhood obesity to join the existing 10 pathways.
Everyday Interactions was developed with PHE to help healthcare professionals record and measure their impact on public health. Based on the public health priorities identified by PHE’s All Our Health framework (including obesity, alcohol and smoking), the toolkit provides healthcare professionals with a means to record and collate their work so that it makes an impact:
- Do – focuses on the brief intervention a healthcare professional might undertake with their patient or client, such as signposting to relevant services
- Record – this relates to what information the healthcare professional would record, such as categorising a referral and recording measurements, such as body mass index (BMI)
- Collate – is about capturing the data over a period of time for multiple individuals
- Impact – brings all of this together and captures the likely impact their service is having in a local area, as well as the national public health priorities that these interventions will impact upon
Eustace de Sousa, National Lead for Children, Young People and Families at Public Health England, said: “Supporting the wider public health workforce to take action to reduce child obesity and increase rates of physical activity is crucial. The childhood obesity impact pathway is a simple way for this workforce to measure, monitor and evaluate their public health contribution. Collecting this data can also help organisations to make better decisions about how to improve future services and ultimately help children to maintain a healthy weight.”
Linda Hindle, Lead Allied Health Professional and National Engagement Lead for Police and Fire Services at Public Health England, welcomed the new pathway: “Feedback about the impact pathways has been very positive. This new childhood obesity pathway provides further support to enable health care professionals to record and measure the public health impact of their interventions.”
With thanks to Charlene Mulhern and staff at PHE for developing the childhood obesity impact pathway.
