ActEarly: a City Collaboratory approach to early promotion of good health and wellbeing

ActEarly is a collaboration encompassing multiple projects. It focuses on early life changes to improve the health and opportunities for children in two areas with high levels of child poverty; Bradford, West Yorkshire and Tower Hamlets, London.

ActEarly works closely with local communities, local authorities and other national organisations to understand how we can help families live healthier and more active lives.

Together we have chosen three key ActEarly themes: Healthy Places, Healthy Learning and Healthy Livelihoods with a cross cutting theme to support healthy weight in children.

Further information

ActEarly website

Peer Review: ActEarly: City Collaboratory approach to early promotion of good health and wellbeing

Twitter: @ActEarlyCities
Instagram: actearlycities

The ActEarly programme focused on improving the health and well-being of children and families in two areas with high levels of deprivation: Bradford and the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It brought together local communities, local authorities, and national organisations to explore how families could be supported to live healthier, more active lives. ARC North Thames contributed to individual projects as well as the ongoing meta-evaluation of the programme. This meta-evaluation developed innovative systems approaches to assess ActEarly’s implementation and overall impact. Interim findings indicated that the programme had begun to positively influence the child health systems in these areas, particularly by strengthening research capacity and fostering collaboration between councils, researchers, and communities. Evidence also suggested that the benefits of ActEarly were likely to extend beyond the life of the programme.

The ActEarly programme made a lasting impact on child health in Bradford and Tower Hamlets by boosting local research skills and building strong partnerships between councils, researchers, and communities. These collaborations helped create more effective, locally focused ways to support healthier lives for children and families. ActEarly also introduced new methods for evaluating complex health projects, providing valuable tools for future work. Importantly, the positive changes started by ActEarly are expected to continue well beyond the programme’s end, helping to improve health and well-being for years to come.

ARC Yorkshire and Humber

Better Start Bradford

Bradford Institute for Health Research

Bromley by Bow Centre

City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council

London Borough of Tower Hamlets

London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

Queen Mary, University of London

University College London 

University of Bradford

University of Leeds

University of York