Improving the Health and Well-Being of Individuals by Addressing Social, Economic, and Health Inequities (Healthy Eating Active Living): Protocol for a Cohort Study.

Background: Health inequity is interlinked with the good health and well-being of an individual. Health inequity can be due to various socioeconomic factors like income levels or social status. Digital health interventions have the potential to reduce the existing health inequities.

Objective: This study aims to identify determinants of social, economic, and health inequity in diverse settings to enhance healthy eating and active living. It further aims to design and develop a digital health intervention HEAL (Healthy Eating Active Living) that incorporates a human-centered design framework in order to improve healthy eating and active living among rural and urban population groups in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India.

Methods: A prospective, 3-year cohort study will be conducted. This study aims to recruit 6350 individuals across rural and urban settings of Chennai. A total of 11 sites have been selected for participation in the study. Data on sociodemographic characteristics; economic inequity; HEAL profile; depression, anxiety, and stress; well-being; sources of health information; perceived access to health care; health literacy; navigation of health literacy; and satisfaction with the health system will be gathered. This study would help to explore the determinants of social, economic, and health inequity across multiple sites. SAS (version 9.3; SAS Institute Inc) will be used for data analysis, and results will be reported as 95% CI and P values. This study's findings will guide the design and development of a tailored, human-centered digital health intervention to enhance the health and well-being of Chennai's population groups.

Results: As of December 2024, the literature review for the development of the intervention has been completed. The recruitment for the baseline data collection will begin shortly, followed by the development of HEAL intervention.

Conclusions: The proposed study will help in examining the role of the proposed HEAL intervention to enhance the health and well-being of the population groups of Chennai.

International registered report identifier (irrid): PRR1-10.2196/41169.