Evaluation of Everyday Active: Using the RE-AIM framework to explore impact and implementation

Background

The overall aim of Everyday Active (EDA) is to encourage more people, to be more active, more often, across Kent and Medway, by providing easy access to information about activities / being physically active. There is a particular focus on people who could benefit most owing to health conditions and/or other personal circumstances.

Whilst this is a countywide campaign, the initial engagement work has been primarily focused in Medway, Thanet, Tunbridge Wells (Cranbrook) and Swale (Isle of Sheppey). These locations have been assigned an Everyday Active Champion to establish and grow the programme.

Methodology

Evaluation approach

The design of the evaluation was underpinned by an Implementation Science approach and based on the RE-AIM framework. This framework is widely used in community-based health promotion interventions and facilitates the translation of research into practice to encourage the likelihood of the intervention working in a ‘real-world’ setting.

The RE-AIM evaluation model provides a useful framework for examining programmes across several key dimensions (Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation and Maintenance), which operate at multiple levels (e.g. individual, setting, organisation, community) and interact to determine the public health or population-based impact of a programme. Brief descriptions of the five dimensions are:

Reach: what types of potential beneficiaries are reached?

Effectiveness: what is the impact on key stakeholders?

Adoption: the extent to which target staff, settings or institutions are willing to engage with the intervention.

Implementation: what contributes to the success of EDA? What adaptations are made during delivery?

Maintenance: how can EDA be sustained?

This approach enables analysis of individual-level outcomes aligned with the aims of the EDA- for example, physical activity and confidence in professionals to discuss physical activity. It also exemplifies a mixed-method approach to evaluation, triangulating quantitative outcomes and output data with qualitative data collected through interviews, providing a summative evaluation for Everyday Active

Through interviews with EDA Champions and provider organisations, the evaluation will explore the