A Co-Produced Stakeholder Workshop to Identify Key Time Points and Targets for Life-Course Prevention of Multiple...

The MELD-B project is a multidisciplinary research consortium with one of its aims focused on identifying childhood targets for the prevention of multiple long-term conditions (MLTCs). Drawing upon the expertise of policy and practice stakeholders can inform research questions, data analysis, and contribute to meaningful and practical outputs. In pursuit of this collaborative approach, a stakeholder workshop, co-designed with people with lived experience, was conducted to inform the next steps of the early prevention workstream of the MELD-B project.

The research team worked with four public contributors to co-design the workshop in terms of its aims and structure. This involved utilising a project-specific animation and developing an imaginary persona to illustrate the life-course concepts of MLTCs, with an emphasis on how early life factors can influence outcomes later in life. Stakeholders were divided into three groups, each with a mix of professions and facilitated by two team members. Jamboard (an online interactive whiteboard) was used to collate ideas, and overarching themes were identified. A poll was administered at the end of the workshop giving choices to prioritise time points for interventions.

25 stakeholders with policy and practice expertise of childhood attended the workshop. Stakeholders were from backgrounds including integrated care boards (n = 5), healthcare practitioners (n = 3), academics (n = 4), council employees (n = 9) and not-for-profit organisations (n = 4). The workshop aimed to identify critical time points and targets in the early life-course for feasible and practical interventions to prevent or delay MLTCs. Themes discussed included: mental health, educational attainment, early identification of health conditions and neurodiversity, nutritional choices, transitional periods, the virtual world, and intermediate outcomes on the pathway to future ill health. Stakeholders suggested that family-targeted interventions were important to prioritise in early childhood; however, at secondary school age individual-focused interventions may become more significant. A poll identified birth and ages 5-7 and 10-11 as the most important time points for interventions.

People with lived experience should have central roles in shaping research questions, prioritising problems and engaging with stakeholders. Our workshop identified priority themes to inform prevention interventions using routinely collected and national cohort data.

The research team worked with four public contributors to co-design the workshop in terms of its aims and structure. Public contributions helped to identify stakeholders to invite to the workshop and co-produced PowerPoint slides to guide the workshop. In addition, the workshop utilised a co-produced project-specific animation and imaginary persona to help frame our research. Public contributors attended the workshop and helped to facilitate discussions by providing their own lived experience. Following the workshop, public contributors reviewed the themes identified by the research team from the discussions within the workshop. Finally, public contributors have also been involved in dissemination of the findings from this study, including this paper. Two of the public contributors are named co-authors on this paper, and two did not wish to be named as co-authors.