Overweight & obesity in Ireland: Translating policy into action

The launch in 2016 of "A healthy weight for Ireland", the Government's National Obesity Policy and Action Plan, 2016-2025 represents an important milestone in Ireland's response to ongoing epidemic of overweight and obesity in children and adults. Researchers in the HRB Centre for Health & Diet (CHDR) generated key evidence which informed the development of the Obesity Policy and in the policy document the CHDR has been tasked with: i) developing an annual bulletin or score card on progress in relation to the Obesity Policy and ii) conducting a mid term review of the policy. The current proposal addresses these tasks. Working in consultation with national stakeholders and international food policy experts and drawing on an internationally validated food policy tool (Food-EPI), we will create a score card to benchmark the National Obesity Policy and Action Plan. Specifically, we will: i) establish a national Expert Panel on food policy with a specific focus on the Obesity Policy; ii) host a workshop with input from international food policy experts to finalise and agree the details of the score card and international benchmarks; iii) using the score card, compile evidence on the extent of implementation of the policy in 2016 and 2017; iv) validate this evidence with the Department of Health and thereby establish a framework for the ongoing evaluation of the Obesity Policy from 2018- 2025. This work (for which no budget has been allocated by the DoH) represents an exciting knowledge exchange and dissemination opportunity for the CHDR.

Award Date

28 September 2017

Award Value

€59681

Principal Investigator

Professor Ivan Perry

Host Institution

University College Cork

Scheme

Knowledge Exchange and Dissemination Scheme