Improving cardio metabolic health in people with lower educational attainment

Problem

People with lower educational attainment (PLEA, those who left school at or before the age of 16) are more at risk of cardio metabolic conditions such as heart disease and type 2 diabetes. Once established, they also tend to have worse outcomes. A key aspect of managing these conditions is learning about and making lifestyle changes to help. My previous research has identified that this group prefer to learn about their health in different ways than the general population, therefore they represent a distinct and vulnerable target group for specially designed educational interventions. A realist review and synthesis of the literature was performed to understand how and what cardio metabolic health education interventions work for this population and in what circumstances.

Approach

A realist review was performed to address the research question. Candidate theories about how such an intervention could work were identified from an initial review of the literature. A systematic search of the literature on cardio metabolic health education in the PLEA group was then performed and evidence for and against candidate theories selected. Context-mechanism-outcome configurations were produced to explain how interventions interact with the circumstances of their delivery, to bring about the desired outcome.

Findings

The work is in progress, but theories generally fall into one of 4 categories: reaching the population of interest, engaging the population, presenting the right information and ensuring this information is assimilated.

Consequences

The outcomes of this work will be used to assist in the design of an evidence based, tailored cardiometabolic health education intervention that specifically meets the needs of people with lower educational attainment, that can be commissioned in geographic area where education status is low, to improve health in this vulnerable group.