BMC Public Health Study protocol Evaluation of community level interventions to address social and structural determinants of health: a cluster randomised controlled trial Martin Wall*1,2, Richard Hayes3, Derek Moore4, Mark Petticrew5, Angela Clow6, Elena Schmidt1, Alizon Draper7, Karen Lock8, Rebecca Lynch9 and Adrian Renton1 BioMed Central Open Access Address: 1Institute for Health and Human Development, University of East London, London E15 4LZ, UK, 2Centre for Social & Health Outcomes Research & Evaluation (SHORE), Massey University, PO Box 6137, Auckland 1010, New Zealand, 3Infectious Disease Epidemiology Unit, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London WC1E 7HT, UK, 4Institute for Research in Child Development School of Psychology University of East London, London, E15 4LZ, UK, 5Public & Environmental Health Research Unit, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London WC1E 7HT, UK, 6Department of Psychology, University of Westminster, London W1B 2UW, UK, 7Centre for Public Health Nutrition, School of Integrated Health, University of Westminster, London W1W 6UW, UK, 8Department of Public Health and Policy, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London WC1E 7HT, UK and 9Centre for Outcomes Research and Effectiveness (CORE) Research Department of Clinical, Educational & Health Psychology University College London, London WC1E 7HB, UK Email: Martin Wall* - m.wall@massey.ac.nz; Richard Hayes - richard.hayes@lshtm.ac.uk; Derek Moore - d.g.moore@uel.ac.uk; Mark Petticrew - mark.petticrew@lshtm.ac.uk; Angela Clow - clowa@westminster.ac.uk; Elena Schmidt - e.schmidt@uel.ac.uk; Alizon Draper - drapera@westminster.ac.uk; Karen Lock - karen.lock@lshtm.ac.uk; Rebecca Lynch - r.lynch@ucl.ac.uk; Adrian Renton - a.renton@uel.ac.uk * Corresponding author Published: 28 June 2009 BMC Public Health 2009, 9:207 doi:10.1186/1471-2458-9-207 This article is available from: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/9/207 Received: 29 May 2009 Accepted: 28 June 2009 © 2009 Wall et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Abstract approach. services. Background: In London and the rest of the UK, diseases associated with poor diet, inadequate physical activity and mental illness account for a large proportion of area based health inequality. There is a lack of evidence on interventions promoting healthier behaviours especially in marginalised populations, at a structural or ecological level and utilising a community development The Well London project financed by the Big Lottery 'Wellbeing' Fund and implemented by a consortium of London based agencies led by the Greater London Authority and the London Health Commission is implementing a set of complex interventions across 20 deprived areas of London. The interventions focus on healthy eating, healthy physical activity and mental health and wellbeing and are designed and executed with community participation complementing existing facilities and Methods/Design: The programme will be evaluated through a cluster randomised controlled trial. Forty areas across London were chosen based on deprivation scores. Areas were characterised by high proportion of Black and Minority Ethnic residents, worklessness, ill-health and poor physical environments. Twenty areas were randomly assigned to the intervention arm of Well London project and twenty 'matched' areas assigned as controls. Measures of physical activity, diet and mental health are collected at start and end of the project and compared to assess impact. Page 1 of 11 (page number not for citation purposes)