Intergenerational intervention development for promoting physical and mental health and wellbeing

A PhD student is designing a new approach to help families improve both their physical and mental health at the same time, rather than treating them separately. Most health interventions target either the body or the mind, but the two are deeply linked. Poor physical health increases the risk of depression and anxiety, while mental health problems make it harder to stay active or eat well. This is especially true for families, where parents and children influence each other's habits. Current programmes rarely address both dimensions together, and few are designed from the start to work across generations. If this research succeeds, it could produce a tested framework for developing family-based interventions that boost exercise, diet, and emotional wellbeing simultaneously. That would give public health teams, GPs, and community organisations a practical tool for preventing chronic disease and mental illness before they take hold. The approach could eventually be adapted for different communities or health conditions. At this stage, the work is fundamental—building and refining the methods for creating such interventions. No immediate product or policy will emerge, but the PhD will establish the theoretical and practical groundwork that future applied studies can build on.