This European Social Fund supported PhD project is aiming to understand how communities have worked to improve health and wellbeing in ways that last. It will identify characteristics that are transferrable to other workplaces and schemes hoping to create sustainable changes in behaviour.

Within Cornwall there are several examples of populations that have transformed their behaviours; The Beacon Partnership, created in 1996 has won many national awards as a community partnership; the TR14ers are a Camborne-based youth dance group which engages over several hundred children in dance; and Ginsters has received national prominence for its healthy workplace activities.

The study will attempt to identify what it is about the culture, management and relationships within these examples that has enabled behaviour change to occur, and importantly, last.

Interviews and focus groups with members from each community will be conducted over the three years of the project, allowing an insight into the evolution of each project.

Ultimately the study hopes to be able to isolate characteristics and conditions that can be applied to other communities hoping to create sustainable changes in environment, health and wellbeing. These findings will be able to inform public health policy and provide some evidence for addressing major public health challenges and tackling health inequalities.

Central to this study is the use of complexity theory as a framework to explain the mechanisms at work within these communities.