The pressure on healthcare is increasing. There are more elderly people with multimorbidity and there is a growing shortage of healthcare professionals. To keep care and support accessible and affordable, prevention and a focus on behavior and health are central (1).

Leidsche Rijn district

The Healthy Neighborhood Alliance Leidsche Rijn was founded in 2017 in the Leidsche Rijn district of Utrecht to work together on prevention and better health of residents in the Leidsche Rijn and Vleuten-De Meern districts. It is a partnership of 14 partners from (health) care, social, welfare, Sport Utrecht, active residents, and residents' initiative Indekerngezond and the Municipality of Utrecht.

Goal project

This project aims to set up an integrated neighborhood-oriented 'Healthy Lifestyle' approach in which residents, patients, and professionals work together. The target group of this project is more than 4,000 patients with one or more chronic conditions who receive chain care at one of the LRJG health centers.

Approach:

An integrated district-oriented lifestyle approach is being developed together with residents, patients, and professionals. This is done by first identifying needs and promoting and hindering factors to achieve a functioning neighborhood lifestyle network. This input is used to develop an integrated district-oriented 'healthy lifestyle' approach. The third step will consist of setting up an online neighborhood platform “Healthy Lifestyle Leidsche Rijn”, followed by the development of effective implementation strategies. The final step consists of the implementation and evaluation of the district-oriented lifestyle approach.

At the end of the project there will be a functioning neighborhood lifestyle network in Leidsche Rijn that consists of the following elements:

1. A generic and district-oriented integrated approach that meets the wishes and needs of residents and professionals and encourages/motivates people to get started themselves

2. An online platform on which recognized lifestyle interventions and informal lifestyle activities are accessible to residents and professionals

3. Continuous monitoring of effects on the integrated health data and evaluation data, and feedback loop aimed at improving lifestyle interventions and lifestyle activities (learning preventive healthcare system)

Sources:

1. Council for Public Health and Society. Take care of your health! Behavior and health: the new order. 2010. The Hague