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Abstract Background The ‘agentic demand’ of population health interventions (PHIs) refers to the capacity, resources and freedom to act that interventions demand of their recipients to benefit, which have a socio-economical pattern. Highly agentic interventions, e.g. information campaigns, rely on recipients noticing and responding to the intervention and thus might affect intervention effectiveness and equity. The absence of an adequate framework to classify agentic demands limits the fields’ ability to systematically explore these associations. Methods We systematically developed the Demands for Population Health Interventions (Depth) framework using an iterative approach: (1) developing the Depth framework by systematically identifying examples of PHIs aiming to promote healthier diets and physical activity, coding of intervention actors and actions and synthesising the data to develop the framework; (2) testing the Depth framework in online workshops with academic and policy experts and a quantitative reliability assessment. We applied the final framework in a proof-of-concept review, extracting studies from three existing equity-focused systematic reviews on framework category, overall effectiveness and differential socioeconomic effects and visualised the findings in harvest plots. Results The Depth framework identifies three constructs influencing agentic demand: exposure — initial contact with intervention (two levels), mechanism of action — how the intervention enables or discourages behaviour (five levels) and engagement — recipient response (two levels). When combined, these constructs form a matrix of 20 possible classifications. In the proof-of-concept review, we classified all components of 31 interventions according to the Depth framework. Intervention components were concentrated in a small number of Depth classifications; Depth classification appeared to be related to intervention equity but not effectiveness. Conclusions This framework holds potential for future research, policy and practice, facilitating the design, selection and evaluation of interventions and evidence synthesis.

Despite strong evidence for health benefits from active travel, levels remain low in many countries. Changes to the physical and social workplace environment might encourage active travel but evaluation has been limited.We explored associations between changes in the physical and social workplace environment and changes in commute mode over one year among 419 participants in the Commuting and Health in Cambridge study.In adjusted analyses, an increase in the presence of one physical characteristic (e.g. bicycle parking or shower facilities) was associated with a 3.3% (95% confidence interval 1.0–5.6) reduction in the proportion of commutes by private motor vehicle and a 4.4% (95% CI 1.2–7.7) increase in the proportion of trips including active modes among men. These associations were not seen in women.A change to a more favourable social environment for walking or cycling among workplace management was associated with an increased proportion of commutes including active modes in women (4.5%, 95% CI 1.4–7.5) but not men. However, in both genders a change to more a favourable social environment for cycling among colleagues was associated with a reduced proportion of commutes by exclusively active modes (−2.8%, 95% CI −5.0 to −0.6).This study provides longitudinal evidence for gender differences in the associations between workplace environment and commute mode. A more supportive physical environment was associated with more active commuting in men, while the social environment appeared to have more complex associations that were stronger among women.