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Abstract Background The mechanisms typically used to fund health promotion in communities, either as part of an effort to scale-up programs or to support the design of local activities, often pay insufficient attention to the foundational means of enhancing well-being. Only recently have researchers begun to critically ‘unpack’ how funding processes connect with and activate local community capacities. Methods We conducted a thematic analysis of 33 interviews with policy and program administrators in public health and local community workers and volunteers. We invited them to expound on their understandings of resources - specifically, what needs to be in place to make funded programs successful and/or what do communities draw on to make funded programs effective. Results Policy and program administrators reflected mostly on the importance of traditional resources, such as adequate funding and staffing. Community-based participants often went further to describe psychological and sociological resources – the “soft infrastructure” which included trust and hope. Both groups emphasised the importance of building networks and relationships at multiple levels. Community workers also provided examples of how resources grow and improve in value in combination with other processes or through pathways of resource use or resource distribution. So, resources like information/knowledge are made more valuable when relayed locally. Physical amenities (e.g., meeting spaces, kitchens) have an instrumental role, but also act powerfully as a symbolic resource for identity. Participants reported that funding processes can damage the resources required for community health improvement. Funding instability undermines capacity. The ongoing threat of funding removal was described by one administrator as community “bullying”. Conclusions Processes of health promotion funding, and even standard processes of program scale-up and readiness assessment, risk underestimating the range of resources that are fundamental for community health improvement, particularly among disadvantaged communities. Funders should design ways to resource communities so that there is constant attention to and coaching of critically important diverse processes of resource growth, independent of program-specific funds.

Citizen science is gaining attention as an approach to involving communities in gathering data and contributing to decision-making in public health. Stakeholders interested in citizen science have identified a need for support in applying these approaches and in obtaining evidence of their value. However, there have been few attempts to evaluate citizen science approaches within policy and practice contexts in public health. Within this protocol paper, we outline an approach to evaluating stakeholder-led citizen science projects that focuses on fostering innovation and building capacity in the use of citizen science approaches by these stakeholders. We will use developmental evaluation, which focuses on ongoing reflection and adaptation, to guide the development and delivery of four stakeholder-led citizen science projects in public health. We will employ a multiple embedded case study design, using surveys and interviews, observations of project meetings, reflective journaling, and document review to gather perspectives from a range of stakeholders across the four projects. Data will be synthesised to explore how projects using citizen science approaches operate within policy and practice contexts, including the barriers and facilitators to their application, the circumstances under which they are most useful, and the impacts of these approaches. A developmental approach to evaluation will enable us to build capacity in the use of citizen science approaches by sharing insights and learnings as project teams navigate their individual projects. We hope that this paper will stimulate further discussion about the application and evaluation of citizen science approaches in public health and beyond.

Background There is increasing interest in using systems thinking to tackle ‘wicked’ policy problems in preventive health, but this can be challenging for policy-makers because the literature is amorphous and often highly theoretical. Little is known about how best to support health policy-makers to gain skills in understanding and applying systems thinking for policy action. Methods In-depth interviews were conducted with 18 policy-makers who are participating in an Australian research collaboration that uses a systems approach. Our aim was to explore factors that support policy-makers to use systems approaches, and to identify any impacts of systems thinking on policy thinking or action, including the pathways through which these impacts occurred. Results All 18 policy-makers agreed that systems thinking has merit but some questioned its practical policy utility. A small minority were confused about what systems thinking is or which approaches were being used in the collaboration. The majority were engaged with systems thinking and this group identified concrete impacts on their work. They reported using systems-focused research, ideas, tools and resources in policy work that were contributing to the development of practical methodologies for policy design, scaling up, implementation and evaluation; and to new prevention narratives. Importantly, systems thinking was helping some policy-makers to reconceptualise health problems and contexts, goals, potential policy solutions and methods. In short, they were changing how they think about preventive health. Conclusion These results show that researchers and policy-makers can put systems thinking into action as part of a research collaboration, and that this can result in discernible impacts on policy processes. In this case, action-oriented collaboration and capacity development over a 5-year period facilitated mutual learning and practical application. This indicates that policy-makers can get substantial applied value from systems thinking when they are involved in extended co-production processes that target policy impact and are supported by responsive capacity strategies.

Background: Emergency services working to protect communities from harm during wildfires aim to provide regular public advisories on the hazards from fire and smoke. However, there are few studies evaluating the success of public health communications regarding the management of smoke exposure. We explored the responses to smoke-related health advisories of people living in a severely smoke-affected region during extensive wildfires in Tasmania, Australia early in 2019. We also evaluated the acceptability of portable high efficiency particle air (HEPA) cleaners used in study participant's homes during the smoky period.Methods: We conducted semi-structured interviews with 24 households in the Huon Valley region of Tasmania following a severe smoke episode. These households were initially recruited into a HEPA cleaner study. Interviews were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed for common themes using an inductive framework approach.Results: Public health messaging during the 2019 wildfire event in Tasmania was widely shared and understood, with social media playing a central role. However, some participants expressed concerns about the timeliness and effectiveness of the recommended interventions, and some would have appreciated more detailed information about the health risks from smoke. Public messages and actions to protect households from wildfire threat were, at times, contradictory or dominated in coverage over the smoke messaging, and many participants were conflicted with the multiple public messages and action relating to the more serious perceived threat from the fire.Conclusions: Public messaging about smoke and health should continue to use multiple avenues of communication, with a focus on simple messages provided through social media. Messaging about the smoke hazard should be available from a trusted central source regarding all aspects of the wildfire emergency, with links to more detailed information including local air quality data alongside interpretation of the associated health risks.