Implementation of an obesity prevention initiative

Faculty of Health, Medicine, Nursing and Behavioural Sciences

The Australian Government has committed $1.7 million over four years to the Collaboration of Community-based Obesity Prevention Sites (CO-OPS) to develop and implement the Learning from Successful Community Obesity Initiatives. This initiative will commence work by the end of July 2008. Deakin’s Chair in Population Health in the School of Exercise and Nutrition Sciences, Professor Boyd Swinburn, is a member of the CO-OPS Steering Committee.

The overall aim of the Learning from Successful Community Initiatives is to:

• identify and analyse the lessons learnt from a range of community-based projects aimed at tackling obesity
• identify the elements that make community-based projects successful
• share the knowledge gained with other communities.

This will be achieved through the following key activities:

• establishment of the Collaboration of Community-based Obesity Prevention Sites (CO-OPS) secretariat
• development of best practice principles, drawn from stakeholder consultations, analysis of existing community-based projects tackling obesity and from national and international literature
• assessment of Australian community-based projects against the best practice principles
• identification of elements that constitute a ‘successful’ community project
• establishment of a Collaboration Network
• development of an Evidence Quality and Analysis System
• provision of an ongoing knowledge transfer, support, resources and dissemination service.

The CO-OPS Steering Committee is comprised of Deakin University’s Professor Boyd Swinburn, Dr Tim Gill (University of Sydney), Professor Elizabeth Waters (University of Melbourne) and Associate Professor Colin Bell (Hunter New England Health) together with a representative from the Department of Health and Ageing.