Nicola Briggs: Shining a light on success – Utilising implementation science to evaluate the reach, adoption and effectiveness of the Ireland Lights Up community-based walking initiative. (Copy)

Background:  

Before returning to education, my career was dedicated to working in the community with socially disadvantaged and vulnerable populations, where I focused on promoting positive health outcomes. These experiences ignited my interest in understanding the broader determinants of health, ultimately leading me to return to education as a mature student. I pursued a BSc (Hons) in Public Health and Health Promotion at SETU Waterford, where I became a IUHPE Accredited Health Promotion Practitioner.

My work as a research assistant further fuelled my passion for population health research, which I have now chosen to pursue as a career. Currently, I am beginning the second year of my PhD, with my research centred on physical activity for health. Specifically, my work explores population physical health through the sports club for health model, initially focusing on the GAA (Gaelic Athletic Association).

Research Project:

Ireland Lights Up (ILU) is a GAA led, community-based walking initiative that is delivered in partnership with Get Ireland Walking, Irish Life and RTE’s ‘Operation Transformation’. It began in 2018, and it involves GAA clubs turning on their floodlights and encouraging members of their local community to walk around their grounds over a six-week period from January to March each year. The concept of using floodlit sports grounds to facilitate community walking programmes in the winter months has the potential to be replicated across several sporting bodies. Since its conception, ILU has scaled up from 80 participating clubs to over 1000 and evaluating an initiative at scale presents valuable opportunities to capture an implementation model that can be transferred across sporting bodies.

The overall aim of the four-year study is to measure the effectiveness of the ILU initiative in terms of its implementation across GAA clubs, measure its impact on health and wellbeing outcomes, and examine how it could be implemented in other National Governing Bodies of Sport in Ireland. 

The research design employs a mixed methods approach guided by implementation science to identify the core determinants of effective implementation across GAA clubs in Ireland.  The research will identify barriers and facilitators of the implementation of ILU and identify strategies to address barriers to the impact and sustainability of the initiative. The project will use a type-two effectiveness-implementation study design, which allows the testing of both the impact and how well the intervention is implemented right from the start. This approach helps ensure that it works in real-world settings while also giving reliable data on its effectiveness in improving health outcomes.  A hybrid of the RE-AIM and the Practical Robust Implementation and Sustainability Model (PRISM) frameworks will be applied to measure the outcomes of the initiative, including Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation, and Maintenance, as well as to predict how these outcomes were impacted through assessment of multiple contextual factors such as; characteristics of stakeholders, infrastructure, costs and value. 

Data collection for the first study in this project has already been completed.  Qualitative data has been collected through observations in implementing clubs (n=10) and one-to-one semi-structured interviews with club leaders and participants (n=15). Quantitative data was obtained through questionnaires distributed to all ILU-participating clubs for participants (n=1245) and club leaders (n=100), complemented by attendance records and manual club counts. After data analysis is complete, this study will document the percentage of individuals in the community engaged in ILU, comparing participant characteristics to non-participants and the target population, particularly emphasising socially disadvantaged groups. The study will also report participant and stakeholder perceptions and expectations regarding reach.

Research design and ethical approval is now underway for the second study in this project to measure health outcomes at participant level up to 12 months via questionnaires at pre and post implementation of ILU with further follow-ups at 3, 6 and 12 months.

The evaluation will provide a comprehensive overview of the activities and behaviours of people who engage and disengage with ILU, as well as examine the influences of ILU and the incentives and barriers to participation. The outcome of this project will seek to maximise the implementation of ILU as well as provide a blueprint for other community-based approaches with a focus on the identification of strategies to engage socially disadvantaged groups to enhance the wellbeing of vulnerable populations in society and combat rising trends in physical inactivity.

Take-Homes and Applications:

This research has the potential to have societal impact on population health. Specifically, it aims to increase the reach of Ireland Lights Up to more vulnerable and disadvantaged groups. It is anticipated that the maintenance arm of the research schedule will provide a template for how ILU can attract sedentary and underserved communities, retain them over the course of the initiative and subsequently signpost them to sustainable programmes within the club and/or local community. Beyond the GAA, this research has the potential to serve as a replicable model for other NGBs of sport and to influence Physical Activity Policy in Ireland targeting the sports club as a setting.

Nicola Briggs

PhD Researcher

IUHPE Registered Health Promotion Practitioner

Department of Sport and Exercise Science

South East Technological University, Waterford Campus

Email: nicola.briggs@postgrad.wit.ie

X: @nicolakbriggs

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/nicola-kate-briggs