A co-produced sustainable food-based intervention to improve nutritional health and ageing in older ethnic minority groups living in the UK

More people in the UK are living longer but that does not mean that they have more years in good health. There are also many more people living longer from ethnic communities. However, there is a lack of relevant health and social care policies to help increase the time spent in good health and to reduce the need for health and care support.

Eating a healthy well-balanced diet and staying well hydrated is an important factor to improve our health as we age. The body's ability to perform many of its functions can start to worsen more rapidly around the age of 50, and even more quickly if we do not follow a healthy lifestyle. We know that poor diet is one factor that is more likely to cause this and increase the risk of developing long term conditions in later life which impact health and quality of life. These condition problems include developing type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and heart problems and in certain ethnic minority groups including UK South Asian, Black Africans and Caribbeans.

There are lots of other reasons why people might have a poor diet which could be because of poor education, low income and difficulty accessing food because of the current cost of living crisis, availability of traditional foods, media influences, language barriers. Therefore, we need to understand more about the factors that influence whether someone is eating well and develop new ways to help people to eat healthier.

In this project we will start to understand this by undertaking an analysis of large datasets collected on the UK population including UK South Asian, Black Africans and Caribbean groups. We will work together with older people from UK South Asian, Black African and Caribbean communities. With the support of the community groups as our project partners, we will also spend time talking with people in their communities and ask them to take photographs. Using the data collected, we will work together with them to produce a new culturally tailored, adaptable toolkit with food-based recommendations, guidance and resources for older people in their communities to make better food choices, and eat a healthier diet.

We will involve and engage with older people from these communities throughout this project by forming a group who will help guide the delivery of the project and sharing of the findings.

Working with community groups as our project partners, we will determine the best way to share the findings with the public, such as through our regional and national networks and through a website, a short film (YouTube), newsletters, blogs and social media posts, webinars, summaries in community newsletters and work with our project partners to provide a photographic exhibition. We will co-produce a policy brief summarising key findings and policy recommendations which will be shared widely with key organisations and policymakers.

Ethnic minority groups in the UK experience disproportionate health inequalities and disadvantaged socioeconomic position, with severe impacts on health and quality of life in older age. Nutrition is a key determinant of healthy ageing and a major modifiable factor known to modulate the ageing process.
Aim: To co-produce a novel food-based intervention to improve nutrition, healthy ageing in both UK South Asian, Black African and Caribbean older adults.
Working with community partners throughout the research, we will draw on their strengths using participatory research, to explore diverse experiences in ageing and co-produce inclusive outputs with older people living in ethnic communities.
In the first phase of the study, we will conduct quantitative secondary data analysis of key national datasets to investigate the key determinants (socio-economic, environmental, psychosocial and physical) of nutrition, dietary behaviour and food insecurity and how these vary between ethnic groups. The second phase will collect qualitative data (interviews, photography/photo-elicitation) from UK South Asian and Black Africans (aged 50 years+) in two study regions in England (North - Greater Manchester; South - Wessex).
We will determine what the food-based intervention needs to promote healthier diet and overcome barriers to optimise engagement. We will use quantitative secondary data analysis and qualitative data to identify the mechanisms to support improved food and nutritional health. This will inform the co-production of a toolkit with recommendations and guidance/resources providing a culturally tailored inclusive food-based approach to maximise impact and benefit through outputs, appropriately targeted at relevant ethnic minority groups, practice and policy makers.
Dissemination will be via academic/professional publications, community events, research website, blogs, social media, using creative methods including exhibitions, lay summaries and policy reports.