How well are community members involved in designing behavioural weight management programmes?

Community members are often involved in designing behavioural weight management programmes but less often in delivering them and rarely in evaluating them. This is according to a review of research on this topic, led by ARC West researchers and published in BMC Public Health.

Obesity is a leading cause of preventable disease and death worldwide. Behavioural weight management programmes provide support for people living with overweight or obesity. They promote sustainable weight loss through changes to diet, physical activity, or both.

Health interventions like these are more likely to be successful if community members are involved in developing them.

Researchers reviewed past research on behavioural weight management programmes developed together with community members, to find out:

• At what stages were communities involved?
• What level of involvement did they have?
• How were they involved?

The review found 58 behavioural weight management programmes developed with community members, reported in 91 publications. Community members initiated the development of roughly one third of the programmes and just over half used community involvement to adapt an existing intervention.

Community involvement was highest at the start of the development process:

• At the planning stage, just over half of studies included community members as collaborators and one in ten had community members leading the process
• At the delivery stage, one third of studies included community members as collaborators and one in six were led by them
• At the evaluation stage, a quarter included community members as collaborators but none were led by them

Only 22% of programmes reported how long communities were involved and only 5% reported the cost involved.

The reviewers conclude that involving communities more in evaluation would ensure programmes focus on what matters most to them. They also recommend studies report on community involvement in more detail, especially the costs and time involved, to allow for shared learning.

The data in the review was gathered from publications between 2010 to 2023 in 3 biomedical and health research databases: MEDLINE, EMBASE and CINHAL.

Tess Moore, lead author of the review, said:

“Involving local communities in health research and intervention design is vital, but our review shows they’re often left out when it comes to evaluating success. That’s a missed opportunity.

“Communities should have a say in what ‘success’ really means, not just researchers or commissioners. After all, they’re the ones these programmes are designed for.”

Dr Beki Langford, senior author of the review, said:

“There’s growing momentum to involve local communities in shaping health services, and that’s really positive. But without understanding the time and costs involved, it’s difficult for local authorities to plan effectively.

“If researchers consistently reported this information, it would make community involvement more achievable and sustainable.”

The research team would like to thank Nadya Isack, Sian Harding and other public contributors who took part in this work.