EmpoweRIng Citizens to adopt Healthy lifestyle Habits: A data-enaBled communIty-based ciTizen Science approach

An unhealthy diet and physical activity habits increase the risk of poor physical and mental health. Adopting healthier habits in a sustainable manner has proven difficult with individual measures. Complex interactions between person and environment are at the heart of health and lifestyle habits and need to be addressed, also considering increasing health inequalities. Instead of looking at individual factors that influence lifestyle habits, in this project we use a holistic approach based on social-ecological models to identify, address, and empower communities to improve their eating habits and physical activity. We combine a variety of scientific methods, ranging from epidemiological data from large cohorts, spatial data collected by citizens and available in GIS, and quantitative and qualitative monitoring from citizen science experiments. Existing cohorts will be used to identify risk profiles and communities where specific unhealthy risk profiles cluster. Moreover, the community-based approach and citizen science will involve local stakeholders and citizens in enriching this data and using it to jointly create innovative solutions to increase citizens' knowledge and awareness of healthy lifestyles and supportive processes by public and private stakeholders. The countries involved, the Netherlands, Denmark and Latvia, all focus on high-risk individuals and communities, facilitate contextually relevant knowledge for the local environment, and enable the identification of generic elements with a wide scope through data alignment and co-creation as well as monitoring. Data science methods will help aggregate and align existing data and interpret results.
The project will realize a better understanding of pathways for influence and innovation, and key enabling factors for empowering co-creation strategies will be used to formulate general policy recommendations and guiding principles for different settings in Europe.