With growing evidence for the positive health outcomes associated with a plant-based diet, the study’s purpose was to examine the potential of shifting adolescents’ food choices towards plant-based foods. Using a real world setting of a school canteen, a set of small changes to the choice architecture was designed and deployed in a secondary school in Yorkshire, England. Focussing on designated food items (whole fruit, fruit salad, vegetarian daily specials, and sandwiches containing salad) the changes were implemented for six weeks. Data collected on students’ food choice (218,796 transactions) enabled students’ (980 students) selections to be examined. Students’ food choice was compared for three periods: baseline (29 weeks); intervention (six weeks); and post-intervention (three weeks). Selection of designated food items significantly increased during the intervention and post-intervention periods, compared to baseline (baseline, 1.4%; intervention 3.0%; post-intervention, 2.2%) χ²(2) = 68.1, p < 0.001. Logistic regression modelling also revealed the independent effect of the intervention, with students 2.5 times as likely (p < 0.001) to select the designated food items during the intervention period, compared to baseline. The study’s results point to the influence of choice architecture within secondary school settings, and its potential role in improving adolescents’ daily food choices.

A diet dominated by plant foods, with limited amounts of refined processed foods and animal products conveys substantial health benefits. This study sought to explore adolescents’ attitudes and perceptions towards plant-based foods. Semi-structured focus group interviews were conducted with adolescents (age 14–15 years) (n = 29) attending an inner city school in Yorkshire, UK. Using a grounded theory methodology, data analysis provided four main categories and related concepts revolving around adolescents’ perspectives on plant-based foods: food choice parameters; perceived drivers and benefits of plant-based foods; environmental food cues; barriers to plant-based food choice. In the emergent grounded theory, a clear disconnect between plant-based foods and the parameters that adolescents use to make food choices, is highlighted. Further, key barriers to adolescents adopting a plant-based diet are differentiated and considered with respect to practice and policy. The analysis offers a framework to remodel and re-present plant-based foods. In this way, it is proposed that a closer connection is possible, with consequent shifts in adolescents’ dietary behaviour towards a more plant-based diet and associated health benefits.

To date, open science, particularly open data, in psychology has focused on quantitative research. This article aims to explore ethical and practical issues encountered by UK-based psychologists utilising open qualitative datasets. Semi-structured telephone interviews with eight qualitative psychologists were explored using a framework analysis. From the findings, we offer a context-consent meta-framework as a resource to help in the design of studies sharing their data and/or studies using open data. We recommend secondary studies conduct archaeologies of context and consent to examine if the data available are suitable for their research questions. This research is the first we know of in the study of “doing” (or not doing) open science, which could be repeated to develop a longitudinal picture or complemented with additional approaches, such as observational studies of how context and consent are negotiated in preregistered studies and open data.

Issues presented by COVID-19 to community resilience are located at individual, community and system level. In this paper, we reflect on WHO Europe propositions on what makes resilient communities, and explore how communities and systems with varying capacity have responded to the pandemic by absorbing and adapting to challenges. In our research, we are seeing local responses at all three levels, which challenge current assumptions about the respective roles of citizen, local voluntary sector and state. This paper presents opportunities and challenges to translating this reactive social movement into proactive resilience-transforming change in how local systems work in the future.

This paper responds to challenges around how to generate robust evidence in keeping with the principles of an asset-based approach based on mobilization of community strengths. The design of a collaborative evaluation of a multi-site Asset Based Community Development program is described and emergent learning discussed. A qualitative mixed method design was used to capture changes at community and program level drawing on diverse sources of evidence. Shared principles on the conduct of the evaluation were developed with program leads and community practitioners and opportunities for shared learning were built in. The paper distils learning on evaluation into six design features including the asset-based model as a framework, understandings of evidence and outcomes, ethical conduct, and the centrality of a collaborative and developmental approach. The paper concludes that these features form a coherent approach to asset-based evaluation which can link the theory and practice of Asset Based Community Development.

Community empowerment interventions, which aim to build greater individual and community control over health, are shaped by the community systems in which they are implemented. Drawing on complex systems thinking in public health research, this paper discusses the evaluation approach used for a UK community empowerment programme focused on disadvantaged neighbourhoods. It explores design choices and the tension between the overall enquiry questions, which were based on a programme theory of change, and the varied dynamic socio-cultural contexts in intervention communities. The paper concludes that the complexity of community systems needs to be accounted for through in-depth case studies that incorporate community perspectives.