National Academies Press Evaluating Obesity Prevention Efforts: A Plan for Measuring Progress

Obesity poses one of the greatest public health challenges of the 21st century, creating serious health, economic, and social consequences for individuals and society. Despite acceleration in efforts to characterize, comprehend, and act on this problem, including implementation of preventive interventions, further understanding is needed on the progress and effectiveness of these interventions. Evaluating Obesity Prevention Efforts develops a concise and actionable plan for measuring the nation's progress in obesity prevention efforts―specifically, the success of policy and environmental strategies recommended in the 2012 IOM report Accelerating Progress in Obesity Prevention: Solving the Weight of the Nation. This book offers a framework that will provide guidance for systematic and routine planning, implementation, and evaluation of the advancement of obesity prevention efforts. This framework is for specific use with the goals and strategies from the 2012 report and can be used to assess the progress made in every community and throughout the country, with the ultimate goal of reducing the obesity epidemic. It offers potentially valuable guidance in improving the quality and effect of the actions being implemented. The recommendations of Evaluating Obesity Prevention Efforts focus on efforts to increase the likelihood that actions taken to prevent obesity will be evaluated, that their progress in accelerating the prevention of obesity will be monitored, and that the most promising practices will be widely disseminated. Table of Contents Front Matter Summary 1 Introduction 2 Improving the Usefulness of Obesity Evaluation Information to Potential Users 3 Framework for Evaluation 4 Indicators for the Evaluation Plans 5 Evaluating Progress in Promoting Health Equity: A Review of Methods and Tools for Measurement 6 National Obesity Evaluation Plan 7 Community Obesity Assessment and Surveillance 8 Monitoring and Summative Evaluation of Community Interventions 9 Systems and Evaluation: Placing a Systems Approach in Context 10 Taking Action: Recommendations for Evaluating Progress of Obesity Prevention Efforts Appendix A: Acronyms Appendix B: Glossary Appendix C: Guiding Principles for Evaluation Appendix D: Table of Indicator Data Sources Appendix E: Disparities Tables Appendix F: National Plan Resources Appendix G: Community Health Assessment and Surveillance Resources Appendix H: Community Intervention Resources Appendix I: Panel Agenda Appendix J: Committee Biographies