3,048 hours spent outdoors as Civic Dollars users tackle diabetes risk

The Civic Dollars project is now well underway in Derry City and Strabane. Funded by Innovate UK, it is a collaboration between Developing Healthy Communities and tech entreprenuer Stephen McPeake in which the innovative community currency is being used to facilitate change for people with specific health conditions, namely people at risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

We asked project researcher Dr Grainne McAnee to fill us in on the latest progress. Grainne writes...

We are recruiting people in the Derry City and Strabane District Council area who are at risk of diabetes to join up and get out into our earn zones. Earn zones are areas where people typically go to spend time outside which have been geofenced by Civic Dollars. It’s all very new and cutting edge. As Civic Dollars seeks to be inclusive, it does not matter if you are running, walking or sitting on a park bench. This is a deliberate decision to allow Civic Dollars to cater for all abilities. You are out and about and have moved from home to be in an earn zone.

Once in an earn zone a user tells Civic Dollars they are there and the earning begins. For each half hour in an earn zone a user will accrue five Civic Dollars which then gives them access to a range of rewards. These rewards have often been donated by local businesses and include a free tea or coffee in eleven cafes throughout the council area; cinema passes or swim passes. Once harvest time comes, they will also include fruit and vegetable boxes from Acorn Farm.

One of the most successful forms of recruitment is through local community groups. As well as groups coming on board to use Civic Dollars, our community partners are listed on the Civic Dollars app and users can choose to donate money to a community partner. So, we have local people, local businesses and community groups all involved and all working together to improve health in our council area.

We have recently hit the milestone of 300 users, which we are very proud of. So far, our users have spent 3,048 hours outdoors and earned 6,097 civic dollars of which 1,305 have been donated to community groups. There have been 1,488 earn zone visits. The most popular earn zone is St Columb’s Park and River Walk which has seen 64 unique visitors who have visited 451 times for a total of 1151 hours.

We look forward to sharing the outcomes of our research on the use of this incentivised tech platform. Our research model is both quantitative and qualitative which means we count things and we also ask people what their experience was like using the app. Using a mixed model in this way means we get breadth and depth to our research. Research will be based on the development of data driven personas for people using the app. We are also very interested in what the best model of delivery is for people who have the potential to incorporate technology into their lifestyle changes for the betterment of their health and wellbeing.

We look forward to sharing the next update!