The differing demands that population health interventions place on individual agency (agentic demand), e.g. time, finance and mental capacity may explain differences in intervention effectiveness and equity. Yet, until now there has been no consistent approach for classifying interventions according to their agentic demands.

The Demands for Population Health Interventions (Depth) Tool begins to addresses this.

Quick links

• Access the Depth tool
• Depth framework webpage (includes policy brief)
• Depth Tool webinar (17 April 2024)
• Scientific publication: Development and application of the Demands for Population Health Interventions (Depth) framework for categorising the agentic demands of population health interventions. Garrott, K., Ogilvie, D., Panter, J. et al. BMC

The need for the Depth tool

The Depth tool categorises population health interventions for diet and physical activity according to the demands they place on individuals’ agency. The idea of agentic demand is often used to explain intervention effectiveness or equity, yet there is no consistent way of classifying interventions according to their agentic demand.

Professor Jean Adams said:

Without a consistent way of classifying agentic demand it is difficult for researchers to develop robust evidence supporting this theory. We hope that the Depth tool addresses this”.

A team at the MRC Epidemiology Unit, led by Professor Adams, developed a tool to help researchers and policymakers better understand intervention agentic demand. The work included systematically identifying population health interventions and using these to develop a draft tool, testing and refining the tool via qualitative workshops and inter-rater reliability surveys with academic experts.
Dr Kate Garrott, said:

When applied in a proof-of-concept review we found that intervention agentic demand appeared to be related to intervention equity. Future research using the Depth framework can explore this further”

Using the Depth tool

The Depth tool, which is funded by the National Institute for Health and Social Care Research (NIHR) Policy Research Programme, can be used by researchers, policymakers and practitioners. Its potential uses include prioritising, selecting, designing or evaluating intervention. When using the tool, the Depth team encourages users to reflect on the tool and consider how it could be improved.