Food retail outlets in sports and recreation facilities often fail to support healthy eating, despite aligning with healthy lifestyles and goals of local governments (LGs) that often own or manage them. LGs face barriers to implementing facility changes including inadequate staffing, training and incentives. The Promoting CHANGE initiative was co-designed to support LGs in improving and sustaining healthier food and drink offerings in these settings.

A 3-year, type 2 effectiveness-implementation hybrid cluster randomised controlled trial will evaluate the Promoting CHANGE capacity-building and support package in three Intervention and four Control LGs in Victoria, Australia (August 2023–July 2026). The co-designed initiative includes human resource support, training, tools, technical assistance, community-of-practice groups, feedback based on food outlet audit and sales data and small grant incentives. Using the RE-AIM (Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation, Maintenance) evaluation framework, the trial’s co-primary outcomes are the percentage of least healthiest food and drinks (1) displayed (implementation) and (2) sold weekly (effectiveness). Key secondary outcomes are effectiveness (sales and revenue); facility-level adoption, implementation, maintenance of healthy changes; cost-effectiveness (within-trial modelled economic evaluation). Findings will provide evidence of the initiative’s effectiveness and scalability, informing recommendations for advancing healthier food environments in over 6000 community-based food outlets across 500 Australian LGs, with implications globally.

This study has received approval from the Deakin University Human Research Ethics Committee (reference number HEAG-H 92_2023). The results will be published in scientific peer-reviewed journals along with plain language summaries for participants.

ACTRN12621001120864.

The commercial determinants of health (CDoH) are a rapidly growing field of research and global health priority. Despite being disproportionately affected, Indigenous Peoples’ voices and perspectives are conspicuously absent from CDoH research and policy. This article outlines the protocol for Addressing Commercial Health determinants: Indigenous Empowerment and Voices for Equity (ACHIEVE), an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander-led project in Australia.

ACHIEVE integrates four research streams, using a novel combination of methods. The first three streams will (i) conceptualise the CDoH using Indigenous yarning methodology, (ii) evaluate the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of policies to reduce exposure to harmful marketing and (iii) assess the impacts of specific commercial entities on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health using case studies. The final stream will consolidate findings from streams 1–3 and work with Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations (ACCHOs) to co-create strategies for addressing the commercial determinants of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health.

Ethical approval for streams 1–3 has been granted by Deakin University Human Research Ethics Committee. ACHIEVE is guided by a governance model that prioritises Indigenous data sovereignty, community and ACCHO partnerships, capacity building and knowledge translation. Findings will be shared with participants, ACCHOs and policymakers to maximise research impact.