MRC Epidemiology UnitInterventions to promote diet and physical activity may affect socioeconomic inequalities in health. The differing demands that different interventions place on individual resources – e.g. time, finance and mental capacity – may explain why some interventions are more likely to widen inequalities than others.
The Demands for Population Health Interventions (DEPTH) framework categorises population health interventions for diet and physical activity according to the demands they place on individual agency (agentic demand).
The idea of agentic demand is often used to explain the effectiveness and equity of interventions. Yet, until now there has been no consistent approach for classifying interventions according to their agentic demands. The Depth Tool begins to addresses this.
The Depth tool is designed for public health policymakers, practitioners and researchers. Potential uses include to inform the prioritisation, selection, design or evaluation of interventions or during evidence synthesis.
Publication
Garrott, K., Ogilvie, D., Panter, J. et al. Development and application of the Demands for Population Health Interventions (Depth) framework for categorising the agentic demands of population health interventions. BMC Global Public Health 2, 13 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s44263-024-00043-8
Policy brief
Depth digital tool
Depth webinar
Watch a recording of the ISBNPA webinar ‘Explaining differential socioeconomic effects in population health interventions: Development and Application of the Depth tool for classifying intervention agentic demand’.
More about the study behind the tool
Read more about the research, study team and funding.
Contact us
If you have any queries about the DEPTH framework please feel free to contact Jean Adams or Kate Garrott.