Background

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has been asked by the Department of Health to develop public health guidance on Obesity - working with local communities. The scope for this work is available on the Obesity webpage. 

Guidance to tackle obesity at a local level using a whole system approach was initiated by NICE in 2009. The work was put on hold in November 2010 and reviewed as part of the Government’s obesity strategy work programme. The revised scope has a stronger focus on local, community-wide best practice. It will address both process and outcomes. The revised scope is available on the NICE website.

Before the development of this guidance was put on hold, the Programme Development Group (PDG) for this work met on four occasions and evidence reviews were completed. The Institute also put out a call for evidence in April 2010 for any research or local information that could contribute to the development of the guidance.

Call for evidence

With the revised remit, we are now undertaking another call for evidence. We are particularly interested in receiving local information that can contribute to any of the following key questions:

Question 1: What are the essential elements of a local, community-wide approach to preventing obesity that is sustainable, effective and cost effective?

Question 2: What barriers and facilitators may influence the delivery and effectiveness of a local, community-wide approach (including action targeting specific groups)?

Question 3: Who are the key leaders, actors and partners and how do they work with each other?

Question 4: What factors need to be considered to ensure local, community-wide approaches are robust and sustainable?

Question 5: What does effective monitoring and evaluation look like?

Question 6:Can the cost effectiveness of local, community-wide obesity interventions be established and, if so, what is the best method to use?

We are interested in a broad range of different types of information, including local process and evaluation reports, finance reports or cost data, scrutiny reports, community plans or strategy reports and local or national government reports, alongside more traditional quantitative and qualitative evidence.

As highlighted in the scope, the following elements – and how they interact – may be considered:

• locally implemented strategies, plans and initiatives, including initiatives run by community, voluntary and NHS services
• partnership working (between, for example, primary care, local authorities, local community organisations, voluntary sector and local businesses)
• local services and other local factors such as food, transport, education, planning and media
• training and development for those involved in local efforts to prevent obesity.

Submitting evidence

The details and documents for this call for evidence can be found on the NICE website.

The only type of material we are not interested in is unsubstantiated opinion / discussion pieces or promotional material. We would prefer to receive electronic or paper copies, but will also accept reference details. Please send details in the attached comments form to PreventingObesityCA@nice.org.uk

Please note that the following material is not eligible for consideration:

• Promotional material
• Opinion  / discussion pieces
• Forms with electronic attachments of published material (eg journal articles), or hard copies of published material.   For copyright reasons, we cannot accept these copies.   However, if you give us the full citation, we will obtain our own copy. We are able to accept attachments of unpublished reports, local reports / documents.

If you wish to submit relevant unpublished information or research, please can you highlight which sections are confidential by using a highlighter pen or the highlighter function in word. Please refer to section 4.4 of the Process Manual for further information on submissions of confidential material.

We’d be grateful if you could send any relevant evidence by 5.00pm on 22 July 2011.

Please ensure that permission from the copyright holder has been obtained prior to sending us any paper or electronic copies. 

Paper copies can be sent to:

Palida Teelucknavan
Project coordinator, Centre for Public Health Excellence
National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence
Mid City Place, 71 High Holborn,
London, WC1V 6NA

We look forward to receiving information on this and thank you in advance for your help.