Collective Prevention of Non-Communicable Diseases in an Ageing Population with Community Care

The Dutch population is rapidly ageing, and a growing number of people are suffering from age-related health problems such as obesity, cardiovascular diseases and diabetes. These diseases can be prevented or delayed by adapting healthy behaviours. However, making long-lasting lifestyle changes has proven to be challenging and most individual-based lifestyle interventions have not been effective on the long-term. Prevention programs focused on lifestyle should involve the physical and social context of individuals, because the (social) environment plays a large role in both conscious and unconscious lifestyle choices. Collective prevention programmes are promising strategies to mobilize the potential of the (social) environment. However, little is known about how such collective prevention programs could work in practice. Together with community care organization Buurtzorg, we have started a 5 year evaluation project to study how collective prevention can be practised in communities. In this paper, we discuss the potential of collective prevention and explain the methods and goals of our study.