Supermarket aisles and staff break rooms could become sites for health interventions that help people stay in work and avoid long-term sickness. The project tackles a gap in public health: while workplaces and community spaces are known to influence health, food retail environments—where millions of people work and shop daily—are rarely used deliberately to improve health or employment outcomes. Food store employees face high rates of musculoskeletal injuries and stress, especially since the pandemic, and customers in deprived areas often have limited access to health support. Current health and disability benefit reforms are pushing for earlier, everyday interventions, but no one has systematically mapped what already works in supermarket settings or how to scale it. If successful, this development project will produce a blueprint for turning retail spaces into health-promoting environments—for example, offering on-site physiotherapy advice for staff, or blood-pressure checks for shoppers. The team will synthesise existing evidence, run workshops with retailers, staff, and community groups, and build a cross-sector network to design a full-scale research trial. The immediate output is a funded research collaboration application; the longer-term change could be a new, low-barrier model for workplace and public health that reaches people where they already spend their time.
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Background: Good health enables workforce participation and quality work promotes better health outcomes. Conversely, poor health negatively affects quality of life and limits employment opportunities (Atwell et al., 2024). Food store employees frequently perform physically demanding tasks such as lifting, prolonged standing, and repetitive motions, which increase risk of musculoskeletal (MSK) disorders and injuries. These is compounded by high-stress environments, further exacerbated since the COVID-19 pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis (Mayer et al., 2022). In socio-economically deprived areas, prevalent health conditions affecting work impact both employees and customers. At the same time, critique of access to work support is prompting reform to the health, disability support and benefit system (Commission for Healthier Working Lives, 2025). A targeted approach in everyday work and life settings could support people living with these conditions, and improve employment, income and health outcomes. Aims and Objectives: We explore current practices supporting workers and residents within supermarket settings. Objectives include: Synthesising practice and concepts on how public and occupational health initiatives in supermarket settings could support health and work outcomes. Identifying infrastructure and mechanisms to mobilise supermarket spaces for health interventions. Developing a cross-sector collaboration with academic, business, practice, and community stakeholders to guide further research, intervention development, and evaluation. Research Questions: What is the current engagement of food retail in public and occupational health, and within Integrated Care Systems (ICS) and locality partnerships? Are there opportunities to mobilise store environments to improve work and health outcomes? What are the potential outcomes of value for staff, residents/public, stakeholders, and businesses? Methods: The work packages engage the following methods: Concept synthesis. Desk review of scientific and grey literature, policy documents, and operational data (past 3 years), to map key concepts, gaps, outcomes and models of practice? Stakeholder engagement & exemplar exploration. Participatory workshops with professionals, retail staff, community organisations and people with lived experience, applying a Social Value forecasting framework. Collaboration and consensus building. WP 1 and 2 will feed into WP3, to build consensus and co-produced understanding of approaches with potential. PPIE is embedded across WP 2 and 3, through engagement with practice examples and the steering group. Timeline: September 2025 to July 2026, covering inception; insight synthesis, stakeholder collaboration, and preparation of a full research application. Anticipated impact and dissemination: Ensuring coverage of proof-of-concept elements to support future intervention research and implementation in supermarket settings, outputs include: A final cross-sector online workshop establishing a collaborative network for the full research award application. Synthesised findings as tailored learning bites for diverse audiences. A LinkedIn webinar to disseminate insights and foster a community of practice among policymakers, industry, and researchers. Preparation of an NIHR Health and Work full Research Collaboration Award application.
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